Page 46 of Highlander’s Lesser Evil

“Ye should not be here without a guard,” he said quietly. “Come. This is the last time that ye will go to the villages without me.”

That wasn’t the answer, but there was no point in arguing now. His heart was hurting. In her hopes of championing her husband, she’d made this worse. She took his hand and promised herself that she’d fix this. Somehow, she would make him believe in himself just as she would make others believe in him.

That night, instead of joining his beautiful wife in bed, Theo sat by the fire and stared into the flickering flames. He’d known that his people hated him, but because he’d been avoiding them, he hadn’t realized the extent of it.

“Theo, come to bed,” Gemma whispered.

“They are right,” he muttered. “I have been avoiding them, putting all my efforts into Loch Moran because I have been ashamed to see my own people. I help when I can to check on things, but for the most part, I leave them alone. The last thing I want is to introduce more fear. For many, I destroyed their lives.”

“You were ordered to.”

All that blood. All those screams. Too many lives that he couldn’t figure out how to save. Lives that had to end because his father wanted to watch, wanted to feed off.

One of them couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and Theo had to kill him because he’d dared ask Patrick for safe passage to another clan to save his dying mother.

A life that Theo could not save. The boy’s face haunted him. “But Fergie is right. A strong man would have stood up to his father,” he said hoarsely.

“Theo.” Letting the blankets fall, she rose and knelt down in front of him, grasping his hands. “You did defy him. You were thinking long term. If you had defied your father every time, he might have ordered you imprisoned or even executed. How many of those people out there would be dead then? There is a cruel darkness inside of him, and then who would be saving them now? If you want to save your people, you have to let the nightmares go. You have to let the past go and see the leader that you are.”

“Ye have known me so little, lass. How can ye be so certain of me?”

“I love you, Theo, and I would never fall for a man who didn’t deserve my heart.”

Filled with wonder that such a woman would choose to love him, he pulled her up and onto his lap, claiming her lips urgently, fearing that one day in the future, she would learn of the monster he’d had to become under his father’s rule.

And then how could she love him?

“Promise me that ye will never ask for yer heart back because I doonae think I will be able to let it go,” he murmured. If he could cling to that love, maybe there would be salvation for his soul after all.

“I promise, Theo. My heart is yours.” Sliding up his thighs, she wound her arms around his neck, and he let her love chase away the darkness.

20

Theo watched Gemma grimly as she rose from the bed with circles under her eyes. She was wearing herself out on this ridiculous mission to prove to the people that he was a good leader. Every morning, for the past month, she went out with a smile on her face, and every night she returned with shadows in those beautiful eyes.

He knew the reason why. Every time she would go out with hope in her heart, the people would dash it with stories of what he’d done in the past. Never once did she come to him and ask if they were true. He feared that she automatically assumed that they were not. How horrified she would be to learn the truth.

He assigned a guard to go with her and look out for her from a discreet distance in case any of the villagers became angry and violent when she refused to give up the mission while he focused on other things. So far, there had been no real evidence on the attack against Loch Moran, but his people here were still trying to leave the borders and seek sanctuary.

Thomas sent reports back that things were well and the villagers were settled. Graeme was still moving in and out of the land, but he’d posed no real threat. Jillian and Elizabeth exchanged letters often with Gemma and helped David and Cameron write to her as well.

Graeme had fulfilled Theo’s request, and Oliver was now on Loch Moran and looking after the boys. Elizabeth and Jillian wrote that the boys seemed to like their older cousin and hoped that he would stay. As it was, Theo would ask him to swear fealty when he returned.

Elizabeth had also apparently written that Oliver was handsome, but Theo had just wrinkled his nose when Gemma gleefully reported that there might be more romance blooming on the loch. After all, he had bigger things to worry about.

If he wanted to prove himself capable of holding on to Loch Moran, he had to prove that he could still hold on to his own people.

His men had brought back a shipment of food from the rich lands of the loch, and today would be the day that he would have to go out with Gemma and distribute those goods and face the people. He could only imagine what their reactions would be given the pedestal that Gemma had put him on.

“Today, ye will stay with me,” he told Gemma as he watched her dress.

Turning, she frowned. “But I am making real progress, Theo. I can feel it.”

“I amnae saying that ye have to stop, lass. I am simply saying that today, ye will be with me. Food has arrived from the loch, and I would distribute it to my people and see if the reports of the fields and the workers are correct.”

“That’s good, Theo. They need to see how much effort you’re putting into their well-being so they can have faith in you again.”

The smile on her face was so beautiful that it made him ache. He could think of absolutely nothing that he’d done to deserve her love, but he would cherish it while it lasted. Eventually, he would have to tell her the truth—that many of those stories about him were true—and then, no doubt, she’d realize that he wasn’t worthy of her love.