Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,110

not need me for anything, save to slake yer desires. I am not yer partner nor yer friend. I am simply the woman ye join with each night before ye steal away from the bed. That is all I am or ever will be to ye, and that hurts.”

He’d rather die a slow painful death than to give her the words. Words he knew would change everything between them.

It wasn’t his male pride that kept him silent. ’Twas once again, the painful memories; the images of his dead father and brothers, that stilled him to silence. Giving her the words was the same as dishonoring their memory. ‘Twould be an act of treason that could never be forgiven.

“If ye think I will beg ye to move back into our chamber, ye are sadly mistaken.” His voice grew louder, more intense. “I will not beg for yer forgiveness!”

Startled, she took a step back. “I have not asked for yer forgiveness,” she said, her own voice growing louder. “I only want ye to give me the truth! I want to hear ye say it. Ye do not trust me.”

“Nay, I do not trust ye!” He shouted, raking a hand through his hair. “I will never trust ye! Why would I trust a MacRay?”

She gasped and the tears fell instantly. Richard knew they weren’t false tears meant to injure or to guilt him into action. Nay, they were genuine and he was the one responsible.

He couldn’t take any more. Furious, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Raibeart and Colyne were in the hallways, frozen in place. They were positively wounded and just as furious. Somehow, he knew they were mad at him.

They shook their heads in disappointment before turning around and walking back to their rooms.

Chapter Twenty-One

’Twas as if a death knell had been tolled. An eerie silence had fallen over the keep, darkening the moods of all within.

Aeschene took her meals in her room, though in truth, she hadn’t much of an appetite.

The boys ate their meals in the kitchens. Lachlan and Rory had all but disappeared.

For three solid nights, Richard sat alone in the gathering room, dining on tasteless, watery soups and flat breads. Everyone, it seemed, was avoiding him. He couldn’t rightly blame them, but still, ’twas irksome.

On the fourth night, he was fully prepared to march above stairs and demand Aeschene move back into their bed chamber. He had drunk far too much ale when that idea presented itself. Liquid courage. Shoving himself away from the table, he was fully prepared to do just that when Rory appeared from the dark shadows of the hallway. “Lachlan and I will be goin’ into Mallaig on the morrow,” he told him.

Richard was glad to see him, but the young man was apparently not in the mood for his company. He turned on his heal and left before Richard could spark a conversation.

“This is getting ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.

Marisse entered the gathering room, took one look at Richard, turned around and left.

“They be treatin’ me as if I have the plague.”

’Tis no less than ye deserve.

Realizing he was too into his cups to have an intelligent conversation with his wife, he quit the gathering room and went into his study. Pacing around the cold, dreary room, he began a gallant search of his heart and mind for a way out of the hole he had dug for himself.

’Twas readily apparent that his family, his men, and half his clan had come to like Aeschene.

At first, he had believed his people were too intelligent than to put their trust into the hands of a MacRay. ’Twas more than lives and home that were lost in the attack by the Chisolms; faith and trust in anyone other than a MacCullough was lost as well.

To trust an outsider was not an easy thing for any of his people, himself not excluded.

How had it happened that his brothers, his family, and even his people had come to not only trust Aeschene MacRay, but to become her champions as well? That was exactly what was happening now; his family and people were siding with his wife. A show of forces if you will, that sided with her.

What was it about her that they were able to see but he could not? How were they able to determine her trustworthy so readily? Was there something she had said or done to earn their loyalty?

How would he even know? He had done everything in his