“A legal solution offers a permanent defense against the Grants.”
“It means she wouldnae have to hide for the rest of her life—or flee to America.”
Diarmid frowned. “She believed those were her only alternatives. Abandoning the child to her kinsmen is unthinkable. The girl will be forced into marriage when she’s little more than a bairn. Fiona already knows what hell that promises. She’s lived through it.”
“I agree.” Fergus paused. “If we take this matter to court, the mother’s moral character will come into question. I’ve never met the Grants, but ye give me nae reason to expect a clean fight.”
Temper had Diarmid surging to his feet. “Are ye casting slurs on the lady’s reputation?”
Fergus didn’t shift from his chair, although his russet eyebrows rose with eloquent mockery. “Hell, laddie, you’ve got it bad. It’s perfectly clear that you’ve never laid a finger on the lassie, if only because frustration’s got ye wound tighter than a watch spring.”
A painful flush burned Diarmid’s cheeks. With a defeated sigh, he slumped back into his chair. “I dinna ken what the devil’s the matter with me.”
“You’re in a tizz over a lass.” Fergus raised his whisky in his direction. “It happens to the best of us.”
Diarmid ground his teeth. “She’s everything I dinnae want.”
“And everything ye do.”
“Aye, that she is,” he admitted glumly and lifted his own glass to drink. But not even Bruce Mackenzie’s finest could shift the desolation settling in his heart. “But she’s been hurt. Hurt deeply. I’d rather cut off my hands than hurt her again.”
Impatience flattened
Fergus’s lips. “Then don’t.” He took a mouthful of whisky. “But getting back to what I was saying—”
“Before I tried to knock your block off?” Diarmid said in self-derision.
“Aye, then. Ye know that she’s as chaste as the driven snow. So do I. But she was alone with this drowned fisherman.”
“He was an old man.”
“Old men have urges, as your lady could tell ye better than most.” Fergus didn’t wait for Diarmid to argue. “Then she was alone with ye at Invertavey.”
“Hardly alone. The place is crawling with servants.”
“Your servants.”
“And she was half-dead when I carried her up from the beach. Only a barbarian would have—”
“I’m looking at things the way the Grants will, as they’ll try and get a judge to see it. If there’s even a whisper that Fiona has taken a lover, the court case will have nae chance of succeeding.”
“I can produce witnesses to swear that my behavior was all that was proper.”
He stifled the memory of that first night in Fiona’s bedroom. On that occasion, if she’d been another woman in other circumstances, events would have turned out very differently.
But then if she’d been another woman, he wouldn’t have wanted her so desperately.
“I’m sure. But what about your two nights alone in the hills? And there’s an inn full of patrons to swear ye rode off with the lassie with nae chaperone in sight.”
“Oh, hell,” Diarmid said, his self-righteousness crumbling to nothing. “I swear I didnae touch her.”
That wasn’t true either. If he’d accepted what she’d offered, however reluctantly, they’d have become lovers in that isolated bothy.
“I believe ye. But it’s the appearance of sin that’s the issue, no’ whether ye sinned.”
Fate had indeed stalked Diarmid ever since he’d met Fiona. The conclusion became inescapable.
“I’ll have to marry her,” he said slowly.