Page 114 of The Laird’s Lost Wife

He dropped his chin. “I broke it because of me, lass. The fault is mine. And then I hid the truth from ye. The thing with the truth is that it’s painful, far more painful than a person might imagine. Hard to get over, hard to swallow.”

She bit her lower lip. “Tell me.”

Two words, so simple, so firm. A command and a plea all at once.

Hunter lowered his gaze to the close-knit carpet below his knees. It was a pretty pattern, all whorls and floral bursts.

“Me first wife was called Alice,” he began, the words coming out rough, like spitting up gravel. “She came from a small neighboring clan. I was happy enough to marry the woman me father picked out for me. She, less so. Now, I would recognize the signs of a woman so unhappy and refuse to make her more miserable, but I was little more than a boy meself, and I didnae ken what I was looking for. I married her. I can still see her at the altar, tight-lipped, furious. She didnae even look at me, didnae take me hand when we said our vows. I put a ring on her finger, but it was too large. She flicked her hand deliberately, and the ring flew off, clattering across the chapel floor. I remember Skye crawling under the pews in search of it.”

He shook his head and gave a rough laugh.

“Now I ken that she was unhappy, desperately so. But I didnae ken it back then. I thought she hated me for me. Anyway, we were wed. Me inclination was to leave her alone, but me councilmen told me that I must sire an heir, so an heir I sired.”

“Yer first child,” Daphne whispered.

He nodded tightly. “Alice made it clear that I was to leave her alone, so I did. I never wanted to make her unhappy. We lived separate lives for a few months. Until…” He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Daphne was watching him, a furrow between her eyebrows.

“What happened?” she prompted. “Hunter?”

“His name was Arthur,” Hunter choked out. “Me son. A tiny version of me, everybody said.”

Oh, it hurt. Saying that name aloud was so painful, so much more painful than he’d imagined. It stuck on his tongue, as if his mouth were reluctant to actually say it aloud. His son. His little boy.

“What happened?” Daphne asked, her eyes wide. “I already ken it’s nae good.”

He cleared his throat. “I was faithful to me wife. I could have had any number of mistresses. I was Laird, and nae a bad-looking man, people said. But I was married, and that was that. I didnae think much about her, though. She didnae want me company, and I didnae force it on her. A few months after me son was born, however, I noticed that her demeanor changed. Me… Me friend visited more often, too. I’ll nae speak his name, if ye daenae mind. It doesnae matter much anymore. He was from a neighboring clan, and his father often sent him to us on diplomatic missions, kenning that he and I would work out a good solution, what with us being friends.”

Daphne briefly closed her eyes, and Hunter smiled tightly. She was clever enough to know where the story was heading.

“I caught them,” he continued. “Me friend and me wife, in bed together. I’ll never forget the shock on their faces. I guess I wasnae supposed to ken about it. I remember that Arthur was crying in the next room. Screaming, really. Alice had insisted that there was nay need for a wet nurse to care for him, that she’d manage him herself. At the time, I thought it was because she loved him, but I ken now that it was because she wanted her lover to enter without anybody seeing. I said… I asked her if she was such a bad mother that she couldnae even hear our son howling next door. Me friend leapt out of bed, but she just sat there, clutching at the blankets, staring at me. I daenae think she thought she’d get caught. I told her that I meant her nay harm, but she would return to her father’s house the very next morning. That our marriage was over. And that I would deal with me friend.”

A lump formed in his throat. He felt sick, genuinely ill to the point he thought he might vomit.

Then a gentle hand landed on his shoulder, fingertips brushing his collar.

“Ye daenae have to tell me if ye daenae want to, Hunter,” Daphne whispered, her eyes glistening.

She already kens how this ends. She guessed.

He closed his eyes. “I have to say it.”

She said nothing, and so he plowed on.

“I turned away from her and went to the nursery next door. I found me friend standing by an open window, holding me bairn in his arms. I remember how the wind tugged at his shirt and how Arthur stopped crying, probably because he was cold.”

He opened his eyes and lifted them to Daphne’s. She was crying now, tears rolling down her cheek.

“I suppose ye ken what happened,” he breathed. “Me friend told me that me son was just as annoying as I was, and he… he… the window…”

There was a long silence.

Daphne pressed her hand over her mouth. “The bairn,” she whispered.

Hunter nodded. “I killed that man. I was too late to save me son, but I dragged him away from the window. He fought me, and I bashed his head against the floor until he was dead. Didnae take long. Alice ran in. She must have heard the screams, mine and Arthur’s. She wasnae a cruel mother,” he added, on reflection. “She only made a mistake, I suppose. I can still hear her cries. She stood at the window, looking down. To her credit, she never glanced at her lover. She only had eyes for our bairn. ‘This is what yer lover did to our child’, I said. She kept saying nay, nay, over and over, as if that would fix it, and I…” He paused, shrugging. “I told her she would leave in the morning, as I said, and everybody would ken what had happened. I’d barely made it to the door when she jumped, too.”

A long silence ensued.