The Sinner Read online

  “I have much to answer for in this life,” he said, “but ye are the one who has been unfaithful in this marriage.”

  “Me?” she said, slapping her hand against her chest. “I am not the sinner here.”

  “Ye kept another man in your heart, Glynis.” He could see that now.

  “I didn’t—”

  Alex cut her off—he didn’t want to hear her excuses. “My promise was that I would not take another woman so long as ye shared my bed,” he said. “I have needs like any man, and if ye won’t have me…”

  He let that hang in the air before he spelled it out for her.

  “I know how to please a lass under the blankets,” he said, leaning down close to her. “I’ll have no trouble finding replacements for ye.”

  Alex wanted Glynis to lie awake thinking of him with another woman, making her scream with pleasure. He wanted her to regret what she’d done and call him back.

  He turned on his heel and left her.

  The axe was still in his hand.

  CHAPTER 45

  After dark, Alex went to the cottage to see how Seamus and Ùna fared. So far as he could tell, they were holding up better than he was. He did not want to sleep in the hall with all his men pretending not to notice that his wife had kicked him out of their bedchamber. So, instead of returning to the castle, he went down to the beach to make his cold bed in the war galley.

  As he lay looking up at the stars, Alex could not help thinking about all the nights he and Glynis had slept together outdoors on their journey to Edinburgh. Ach, how had it come to this? He thought his threat to take other women to bed would bring Glynis around. It hurt more than his pride that it hadn’t.

  When he awoke in the morning, he sat on the beach staring out at the sea. He had worked hard every day for the last two months, rebuilding the castle, training the men, chasing pirates away from these shores. But he didn’t feel like doing a damned thing today.

  He heard a giggle and turned to see his daughter running toward him with her hair flying out behind her. When she crashed into him and flung her arms around his neck, he closed his eyes. At least he still had her. God, he loved this child.

  Bessie was breathless when she caught up to her charge. “Sorcha, go to the kitchen and bring your father back some breakfast.”

  Sorcha appeared pleased to be entrusted with the task. When she had scampered off, Bessie remained with her feet planted in front of him.

  “Do ye want to accuse me of something as well?” Alex asked.

  “Nay.” Bessie bit her lip, looking uneasy. “Mistress Glynis would no be pleased to have me tell ye this, but I think ye have a right to know.”

  The back of Alex’s neck prickled. “What is it that I have a right to know?”

  The woman fidgeted with her hands for a time before she finally spoke again. “Your wife is with child.”

  Pain seared through him, blinding him with its force. Glynis was carrying his child, and she had not seen fit to tell him. How long had she kept this from him—and why? Had she been planning to leave him all along?

  * * *

  “Have ye seen your father?” Glynis asked Sorcha when she came barreling up the steps of the keep.

  Sorcha pointed in the direction of the beach.

  “Don’t run inside,” she said, and touched Sorcha’s cheek.

  Glynis found Alex sitting alone on the beach. When she stood beside him, he did not acknowledge her.

  “I am going home,” she said.

  “This is your home.”

  “I’m returning to my father’s,” she said. “Ye can supply a boat, or I’ll steal one.”

  Alex continued staring off at the horizon as he spoke. “Did ye plan to leave and never tell me about the child?”

  Glynis sucked in her breath. How did he know about the babe? Although he still did not look at her, she could feel the anger and hurt vibrating off him. Ach, it had been a mistake not to tell him.

  “I haven’t known long,” she said in a soft voice. “My fluxes have always been irregular, and I thought I was barren, so I didn’t believe it at first. I wanted to be certain before I told ye.”

  “But ye did know, and ye kept it from me.”

  Glynis had wanted to save him from the disappointment if it turned out she was wrong. But she had been going to tell him soon.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “But it doesn’t change anything.”

  “It doesn’t?” he said, his voice dangerously low. He turned to face her, and his eyes burned through her like a torch to parchment.

  “I can’t live with ye now.” Her voice shook, despite herself. “I want to go to my father’s.”

  “If you’re that set upon it,” Alex said, his eyes hard as ice, “then I will allow ye to leave after the child is born.”

  “After? But that’s months away,” she said. “Ye can’t keep me here.”

  “As I said, ye may leave after the child is born, if that is what ye want,” Alex said. “But the child stays here.”

  “Ye can’t mean it,” Glynis said, her voice coming out high-pitched. “Ye wouldn’t try to force me to stay by threatening to keep my child.”

  “I’m no threatening, and ye can do as ye like,” he said. “But the child will remain here.”

  “Ye wouldn’t do that to me,” Glynis said, looking into his face for a bit of softness and finding none. “Nay, ye can’t hate me that much.”

  “Ye are the one leaving. I asked ye to stay.” Alex got to his feet. “If ye are separated from our child, it’s by your own choice. I won’t take the blame for that.”

  “I won’t let ye keep my child from me,” Glynis said, clenching her fists.

  “Under Highland law, it is a father’s right.”

  “But most fathers don’t enforce it—at least not when the child is young.” Glynis grabbed his sleeve, but he shook her off. “Alex, ye wouldn’t do this.”

  “Since ye believe I would seduce that poor, frightened lass, Ùna,” Alex said, glaring down at her, “than ye know I’m capable of anything.”

  CHAPTER 46

  The tension was so thick between her and Alex at the table that Glynis could not eat. It had been like this for a week now, and she was feeling the strain—as was the entire household. When she set down her eating knife, she felt Alex’s eyes on her and could not help giving him a sideways glance. There were lines around his eyes, and his expression was grim.

  Smiles rarely graced his countenance these days—except when he was playing with Sorcha. Unlike most fathers of daughters, he paid close attention to her. He treated her as the special and unexpected gift that she was to him. If Glynis took her new babe away with her, she would be denying the child a wonderful father. But it was worse to separate a babe from its mother, was it not?

  Nothing she did would be right.

  Glynis got up from the table without eating a bite and left the hall. She was going down the steps of the keep when Alex caught her arm and spun her around.

  “God damn it, Glynis, ye have to eat,” Alex said.

  “Ye wouldn’t care if I starved to death, except for the child I carry.”

  Alex took a step back, as if her words had dealt him a physical blow. “After all that was between us, how can ye say that to me?”

  It was a harsh thing to say, and she would not have if she were not so tired. She found it hard to sleep in their bed alone.

  “Ye win, Glynis.” Alex sank onto the steps and held his head in his hands. “I’ve tried to do what I thought was best, but nothing has turned out as I wanted it to.”

  Win? She could not feel worse. Oh, God, she hated to see him like this.

  “Are ye saying you’ll let me go?” she asked.

  “Aye. And take Sorcha with ye,” he said, sounding as though the words were wrenched from him. “I can’t provide her with the family she needs.”

  Glynis sat beside him on the step. “Nay, Alex. I cannot do that.”

  “You’ve become a mother to he
r,” Alex said. “Sorcha needs ye more than she needs me.”

  “Ye know I love her with all my heart, but I could never ask ye to give her up.”

  He turned, and his gaze settled on her like a cold sea mist. “And yet, ye asked me to give up my other child with no hesitation.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “Do ye believe I will care less for that child?” he demanded. “That the babe we made together would be any less precious to me than Sorcha?”

  Glynis dropped her gaze to her lap and shook her head.

  “If ye know that,” Alex said, “then how can ye believe I would risk everything that matters to me for a tumble with some lass I barely know?”

  “Ye were never particular before,” Glynis said in a low voice.

  “I had nothing to lose before.” Alex stood up. “Go when ye wish. I’ll not stop ye.”

  * * *

  Sorcha flicked her eyes from her father to her mother and back again. Their sadness weighed down on her chest. She squeezed what was left of her doll. Bessie tried to hide Marie, but Sorcha always found her again.

  She knew her parents had been waiting for her to speak. Sometimes when she was alone she could make the words that were always in her head come out of her mouth. But that was before she learned her mother was leaving. She’d heard whispers about it all over the castle.

  Sorcha wanted to tell her mother not to leave them. She wanted to ask if it was her fault that she was. But her chest grew tighter and tighter, trapping the words inside.

  CHAPTER 47

  Glynis was leaving tomorrow.

  As Alex had always suspected, he was incapable of keeping a woman happy for long, incapable of being the good husband and father he wanted to be. Blood will out.

  But he missed Glynis so much his heart ached with every step. He had tried shouting at her, reasoning with her, and threatening her, and he had come very close to begging her. Now he would make one last attempt.

  He wanted her to stay with him because she trusted and respected him. Ah hell, he wanted her to stay because she cared for him. But with her leaving in the morning, Alex was desperate enough that he didn’t care if she stayed with him for the wrong reasons—so long as she stayed.

  It was time to play to his strengths. He would get her into bed. And then he would drive Glynis so mad with passion that—against her better judgment and despite the lies she believed about him—she would take him back.

  And even if she did not, Alex would have one last night with her.

  * * *

  Glynis sat by the window stitching because she had finished her packing and had nothing else to do. Although she’d rather be outside, it was better for both her and Alex if she avoided him until she boarded the boat tomorrow. It was one of those fine autumn days when they had a lull between storms and the sun shone as if it was summer. But in her heart, there was no break in the rains.

  Alex’s laughter floated through the window, and her needle stopped. Alex was by nature full of good humor—and yet, how long had it been since she’d heard his laugh? She’d missed the sound of it.

  Had he sought out another woman because Glynis drained the joy out of him? She was all hard edges and strong opinions. If she were easy and sweet-natured like her sisters, perhaps Alex would not have strayed. Or perhaps she could live with his straying.

  But she was the difficult, demanding person she was.

  Glynis set aside her stitching and picked up the silver medallion of Saint Michael from the table beside her. She twirled the medallion by its heavy chain and watched it spin, thinking of the day it had caught her eye in one of the shops that her aunt and uncle had dragged her into. When she left Edinburgh in a rush, she had tucked it away in her bag and forgotten it until she came across it while packing today.

  She stopped it spinning and rubbed her thumb over it. She had traded one of her rings for the medallion because the image of Saint Michael, the warrior angel, looked so much like Alex.

  Alex’s laughter came in through the window again. Drawn by the sound as if it were a string tied to her heart, Glynis set the medallion on the table and went to the window. The sight of Alex in the castle yard below stole her breath away. With graceful, swift movements, he was demonstrating the use of the claymore to a few of the older lads.

  Alex with a sword in his hands was pure masculine beauty in motion. Glynis’s throat went dry as he danced and spun and sliced his blade through the air with deadly force. Her fingers itched to touch the powerful muscles of his chest, arms, and back as he swung the heavy sword from side to side with sure, smooth strokes.

  When the men stopped to rest, Alex slapped one of the lads on the back. His broad smile, showing even white teeth, reminded her again of how little she had seen it of late. Long after Alex disappeared from view and the voices of the men faded, Glynis remained at the window. She stared off at the sea, remembering how Alex used to look at her with a sparkle in his eyes.

  “Glynis.”

  Her heart went to her throat at the sound of his voice behind her. When she turned, Alex stood in the doorway, his long, lean body propped against the door frame. He had not put on his shirt, and his skin glowed as if it still retained the warmth of the sun.

  “I didn’t hear ye,” she said stupidly, as she dragged her gaze to his face—which was no safer than his body.

  She loved everything about that face, from his stubbled jaw, to the strong planes of his cheekbones and forehead, to his wide, sensuous mouth. When she met his green eyes, they sizzled with the knowledge of every inch of her body.

  Did Alex say more than her name? Glynis’s heart was banging so hard against her chest she could have missed it.

  She tensed, trying desperately to convince herself to stop him if he came nearer. But then, a knot of disappointment tightened in her stomach when he did not. Instead, he crossed the room to the chair, watching her from the corner of his eye. From the way his mouth quirked up at the corner, Alex knew precisely the effect he had on her. Ach, he was a devil.

  Alex sat in the chair, put his hands behind his head, and stretched out his long, muscular legs. Her breathing grew shallow as he let his gaze burn over her as if she wore nothing.

  “Come sit on my lap, Glynis,” he said, crooking his finger. “Ye know ye want to.”

  “I don’t,” she said, though her body was tilting toward him like a flower to the sun. How she longed for his touch.

  Alex laughed. “Ye have always been a poor liar.”

  “That is no a bad quality,” she said, stiffening.

  “Aye, ’tis one of your charms,” he said, giving her a smile that sent a wave of desire through her. “I have a proposition for ye.”

  “A proposition?” Her life had changed the last time he had said that to her.

  “Come sit with me, and I’ll tell ye what it is.”

  He was not angry and yelling at her. Alex was his old, lighthearted self, so without stopping to ask herself why, she went to stand beside him. Instead of trying to pull her into his lap, he ran his finger slowly up her arm. She could hardly push him away for such a small gesture, and yet the slow, light touch set all her senses alight. Her entire being focused on the course of his finger sliding up her arm under her loose sleeve.

  When his hands enclosed her waist and lifted her onto his lap, no word of objection would come out of her mouth. She longed to close her eyes and lean against his solid frame. Why, why, why could she not just accept his nature, take the good with the bad? Alex could not help that women were drawn to him like flies to honey. He was who he was.

  And yet, Glynis wanted to be the only one. She had to be.

  “This is no so bad, aye?” he asked, as he played with her hair.

  She bit back a sigh when his fingers grazed her neck. Finally, she remembered to ask, “What is this proposition?”

  “I know ye miss me in bed,” Alex said. “And God knows, I miss you.”

  He missed her. It should not please her so much to hear him
say it.

  “That’s not enough,” she said—though at the moment, it nearly was.

  When she said it, she thought she saw a flash of pain cross Alex’s face, before he covered it with another easy smile.

  “I’m a sentimental man,” Alex said, as he brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I think we should have one more night together to remember each other by.”

  “Nay” caught in her throat when she felt his breath on her ear.

  “I know how to please ye,” he whispered.

  When Alex nuzzled her neck the way she liked, Glynis leaned her head back. Alex did know how to please her. She ached for him to touch every valley and crest of her body.

  His nearness worked an enchantment upon her. She could form no clear thoughts while his hands slid over her and he lowered his mouth to hers. When his lips touched hers, she sank into him. Everything about him—his smell, his kiss, his heat—was familiar and filled the empty spaces he had left inside her.

  Alex moved slowly, as if he were afraid of waking her from her dream. She was so lost in him that she barely noticed when he carried her to the bed. He touched her with a tenderness that made her heart bleed. No matter what he did with someone else, she knew he did care for her. It was in the way he held her.

  They were naked without her knowing or caring how it happened. He said her name over and over as he ran sweet kisses down her arms and pressed her palm against his rough cheek. With his gentleness, he shattered every defense she had erected against him. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling too much to bear looking into his face.

  Even while he was in her arms, she was grieving for the loss of him. She hurt inside, and she knew she was hurting him badly, too, but she didn’t see a way to stop wounding each other except by leaving.

  Glynis held him tightly to her, her deep need for him filling her with a quiet desperation. If he told her now that he loved her, she would believe him.