him guilty, they found his body.”
“Maybe your father was guilty.”
Ian nodded. “He was, but not of the crime for which they accused him. He was guilty of loving Maxwell’s wife.”
“Ellen?” I barely whispered her name, but Ian heard.
“Yes.” His eyes were haunted. “For years Ellen put up with Maxwell’s womanizing. She’d decided to leave him right around the time that the scandal involving my father and the girl was made public. The details no longer matter, and I won’t go into them. It’s enough to say that Maxwell planned well. His wife stayed with him, and my father killed himself.”
I refused to allow sympathy to interfere with my purpose. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“I assumed that you wanted to know what I had against James Maxwell,” he answered.
“You’ve explained,” I said, turning to go.
“Christina, wait.” His hand closed around my arm. “I never intended for you to be hurt. I love you. You must believe me.”
“Don’t say anything more. I suppose Kate was going to divide her share with you.” Tears burned the insides of my eyelids.
“I don’t want your money.”
Unbidden, the words of our first conversation came back to me. I hope you appreciate what you’ve been given.
I turned on him, pain thickening my voice. “Don’t you? If I hadn’t overheard the two of you last night, you would’ve had the whole pie for yourself. Kate was no longer necessary.”
“It isn’t like that at all.”
“You never believed any of it, did you?”
“What are you talking about?” He looked confused.
“You pretended to accept everything I told you, about Katrine and Jeanne and Mairi of Shiels. Everything you said was a lie to convince me that you cared.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” I felt the tears well up and spill down my cheeks. “Just which part of it isn’t true?”
He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “I do believe you. At least, I believe that you believe it. Oh, hell.” He gave up. “I don’t know what I believe any more. Kate is drugging you, Christina. These hallucinations you’re having may be a combination of what you’ve read about the Maxwell-Murrays and whatever it is that Kate is giving you. Who knows what effect this has had on you? I swear to you I knew nothing about it until yesterday when Kate told me what she’d done. I believed her when she told me she’d discussed your inheritance with Ellen Maxwell before she died and the two of them had agreed to ask you for her rightful share. I would never have allowed her to put you or the child in danger.”
I could feel my face pale. My baby. The drug may have affected the baby.
“Until yesterday, time travel was nothing more than fiction to me,” he continued. “But then I saw you fade before my eyes, and when you came back, you weren’t yourself. I can’t explain it. Maybe we’re both crazy.”
“I’m not crazy.” I didn’t normally raise my voice, but I was past logic. Ignorance was no excuse. He’d helped to harm my baby. “You’re despicable. I don’t know you at all. The only regret I have is that my child was fathered by someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word character.”
The tears were flowing freely now. I don’t remember leaving the house or getting into the car. I’ll never know how I found the road or negotiated the twisting turns back to Traquair House. It was late afternoon. No one was in sight. I walked up the stairs. In the comfort of my own room, behind the privacy of locked doors, I looked longingly at the bed. I needed rest, hours of it. Climbing, fully clothed, beneath the feather comforter, I closed my eyes. Pregnancy was exhausting. Later, much later, I would decide what to do with Kate.
Twenty-Four
THE BORDERS OF SCOTLAND
1290
Edward gritted his teeth. The stallion’s steady canter jarred his arm. A handful of moist peat pressed against his wound and held in place with strips of bloodstained linen cooled the fiery pain in his shoulder. Drops of sweat broke out on his forehead. The royal standard had fallen hours ago along with the bodies of ten knights who would be sorely missed in future battles.
Closing his eyes, he leaned forward to rest his head against the lathered neck of his mount, giving himself up to the endless swaying, the pounding in his head, and the sickening nausea that threatened to overtake him with every step. Soon, very soon, consciousness would