Pine Creek 1 - Charming The Highlander by Janet Chapman

Author:Janet Chapman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-03-02T00:16:24+00:00

“Are ya not going after her?” Callum asked, looking at the still humming door that Grace had slammed on her way out.

“So I can bring her back to face your anger again?” Grey asked all three of them. “So you can further berate her for being a woman, with a woman’s heart that only wants to help all of her neighbors?”

He turned to the silent priest sitting by the hearth. “What do you think, old man? Should I go after her?”

Daar shook his head, looking tired from the battle he had just witnessed. “Not if you’re not ready to let go of your hatred for MacBain,” he said. “The girl feels a powerful duty to her sister, and your little tale has finally made her realize that she can’t be loyal to you without being disloyal to Mary.”

Grey stared at him for another minute, then turned to look at his men. How was he supposed to put into words what he wasn’t sure of himself? How could he tell a father that they were all to blame for Maura’s death, and not just MacBain, but Grey, Ian himself, and the very society they had lived in back then?

“Your daughter had no desire to marry your laird, Ian,” he began, picking his words carefully but putting the power of his title behind them. “I was twelve years older than she, and I scared her to death. Maura had been in love with MacBain since the summer festival the year before.”

“That’s not true,” Ian protested. “I would have known of such a thing.”

Grey shook his head at the suddenly desperate-looking man. “She was too afraid to tell you or her mother because she didn’t want to disappoint you. She knew how proud you were that your daughter was chosen to marry your laird,” he told him gently.

“That still doesn’t justify what he done, going behind my back like a jackal and seeing Maura without her father’s permission,” Ian said, his expression pained. “She killed herself because she was pregnant and MacBain tossed her away like rubbish.”

“Did he?” Grey asked. “Do we know that as fact, or has that been a convenient excuse all these years, to justify our own arrogance and neglect? Were we all not guilty back then, as men, for forgetting to ask our daughters what they wanted? How many marriages were arranged without their consent?”

“Dammit. That was how it was done then,” Callum said. “It was our duty to guide them and to protect them from their own soft hearts.”

“Why?” Grey asked all three of them. “When you see women like Mary and Grace Sutter, do you consider them inferior? Unable to think for themselves? Can you see any man today arranging a marriage for either one of them that she had no say in?”

“Of course not,” Callum said, frowning. “But that’s different. This is now, not eight hundred years ago.”

“Were our mothers and wives and daughters any less intelligent than Mary and Grace Sutter? Less capable? Less strong?” Grey asked.

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