Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 103

He picked up another bottle of whisky and turned it in his hand, studying its rich amber color with drunken appreciation. He raised the bottle to his lips, his hand fisted about the neck, and bit out the stopper. Briefly he remembered biting out the stopper of a Gypsy potion. Remembered covering his wife’s body with his own and tasting, touching, kissing … He’d been fool enough then to believe in love.
Bah! Adam! It had always been him. From the first day he’d seen her. She’d been standing pressed against a tree trunk watching the blasted smithy with hunger in her eyes. He tossed back a swallow of whisky and considered going back to court. Back to King James.
A crooked, bitter smile curved his lip. Even as he pictured himself prowling the boudoirs of Edinburgh again, another part of his mind recalled the roiling thick steam rising from a scented bath, the sheen of oil upon her skin as she’d tossed her head back, baring the lovely column of her throat to his teeth. Baring everything to him, or so he’d thought.
Adrienne … Treacherous, traitorous, lying unfaithful bitch.
“Lay me into the dead earth now and be done with it,” he muttered to the fire. He didn’t even react when the door to the study was flung open so hard that it hit the wall. “Close the door, man. A bit of a draft chilling my bones, there is,” the Hawk slurred unsteadily without even bothering to see who had invaded the drunken squalor of his private hell. He again tilted the bottle to his mouth and took a long swallow.
Tavis crossed the room in three purposeful strides and smashed the bottle out of Hawk’s hand with such force that it shattered in a splash of glass and whisky on the smooth stones of the hearth. He gazed at Tavis a befuddled moment, then reached, undeterred, for a second bottle.
Tavis stepped between the Hawk and the crated liquor.
“Get out of my way, old man,” Hawk growled, tensing to rise. He had barely gained his feet when Tavis’s fist connected solidly with his jaw, spilling him back into the chair.
Hawk wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and glared up at Tavis. “Why’d you go and do that for, Tavis MacTarvitt?” he grumbled, making no move to defend himself.
“I don’t give a bloody hell what you do to yourself, laird,” Tavis sneered. “Just get the hell out of this castle and don’t do it in front of your mother.”
“Who the hell d’you think you are?”
“I know who I am! I’m the man who watched you grow from wee lad to braw laird. I’m the man who burst with pride while he watched you make some hard choices.” Tavis’s voice dropped a harsh notch, “Aye, I’m just the man who has loved you since the day you drew your first hungry breath in this world. And now I’m the man who’s going to thrash you within an inch of your worthless life if you don’t get a grip on yourself.”
Hawk gaped, then swiped irritably at Tavis. “Go ‘way.” He closed his eyes wearily.
“Oh, I’m not done yet, my boy,” Tavis said through gritted teeth. “You are not fit to be laird of a dunghill. ’Tis obvious you have no intention of pulling yourself together, so until you do you can just get the bleeding hell out of Lydia’s castle. Now! I’ll send word to Adrian and bring him home. He’ll make a fine laird—”
The Hawk’s eyes flew open. “Over my dead body,” he snarled.
“Fine. So be it,” Tavis spit back. “You’re no use to anyone as you are now anyway. You may as well fall on your own claymore for all the good you’re doing your people!”
“I am laird here!” Hawk slurred, his eyes flashing furiously. “And you … you, old man, oh hell, you’re fired.” Although he had intended—when he’d still had his wife—to relinquish his place to Adrian, it was currently damned cold outside and he wasn’t going anywhere just yet. Maybe in the spring, if he hadn’t drowned himself in whisky yet.
Tavis yanked Hawk to his feet in a swift motion, surprising the drunken laird. “Pretty strong for an old man,” Hawk muttered. Tavis pulled the stumbling Hawk to the doors of the study.
“Get off me!” the Hawk bellowed.
“I expected more from you, lad. A fool I must be, but I thought you were the kind of man who fought for what he wanted. But no, you just fell apart in the face of a wee bit of adversity—”
“Och, and my wife leavin’ me for another man is only a wee bit of adversity? That’s what you call it?” Hawk slurred thickly, his burr deepening with his anger.
“Regardless of how you perceive what happened, you still have a family here, and a clan who needs its laird. If you can’t do the job, then step aside for someone who can!”