“Will you forgive me, Ian?” she begged. “I was just a girl! I didn’t know what to do!”
“But you became a woman who should have known better. You had all this time to make it right but chose not to.” Ian sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, Dory. I don’t know if I can forgive, but I hope for the sake of our sons that our marriage is legal. I will leave for Inverary to meet with our solicitor.” He looked as if might approach Dory but turned away resolutely but turned back as he reached the door. “And it is not just my forgiveness you must receive, Dory. You must beg it of my brother as well. You have to make it right.”
“Ian!” she cried out, but he left the room. “Emmy, what am I to do?”
“Apologize and pray for a second chance, I guess.” Emmy glanced worriedly at the door. “I must see Connor, Dory. Think about it. Put yourself in his shoes and try to think about what is best for someone else this time.”
Chapter 42
Emmy found Connor in his study already half way through a bottle of whiskey. As she watched, he guzzled another glassful and grimaced. “I would slow down there, big guy. I am all out of aspirin to cut the aftereffects.”
“Go away,” he muttered.
“Nope, I’m not going to do that.” She strolled over to the desk and turned him in the desk chair until she could face him. Kneeling before him, she rested her forearms on his thighs and stared up at him. “Alcohol is not the answer, Connor. Dory was wrong to keep this from you for so long.”
He snorted rudely and downed the remaining contents of the glass.
“Okay, she was incredibly wrong to keep it from you,” Emmy emphasized. “She was young and stupid at the beginning but ten years of nursing the lie was awful and she knows it. I think she thought she was just trying to maintain the status quo as it were.” She rubbed her palms against his muscled thighs trying to comfort him. “You could not defy your father to stop a marriage you didn’t want and she couldn’t either. She didn’t have it in her to be defiant in the face of punishment and pain. For that one moment, her flight from here, I can’t find her completely at fault, can you?”
“She…” he faltered. He tried to remember those days but all he could recall was Dory’s haughty behaviors. Was it possible that it had been fear? He shook his head in doubt.
“Young and stupid, remember?” He sighed and covered her hands with his own. Looking down into her bright blue eyes, he saw her compassion and love. How thankful he was to have her here. She would never go away when he told her to; she would fight him, aggravate him but always comfort him. Her love was soothing, calming. Her intelligence and inappropriate wit softened harsh realities. Her presence made the whole situation more tolerable.
“Coming back,” Emmy went on conceding, “was beyond stupid. I told her she should have just stayed away, but with her entire family dead, she felt she had no alternative but to come back to Duart. She should have come forward with the truth so it could have been handled properly. She really, really should have but she didn’t and she has lived with that guilt all this time. And I am not trying to belittle your pain. I know your happiness has suffered because of her and she knows it, too. But her regret is real.”
“And ye believe her?”
Emmy softened to him loving that he trusted her opinion and belief. “I do.”
“But her bigamy!” he fingered that point. “Ye canna deny that sin! And she has damned my brother, too, with her adultery.”
“Well, you missed the best part when you stormed out, but,” she teased lightly, “I think my ‘educated man’ can work it out. It’s simple, really. I’ll start it for you…you married Heather Stuart.”
He started to agree. “Aye, I marr…”
“There goes the light bulb,” she encouraged softly. “That a-ha moment. Run with it, baby!”
“I didn’t marry Heather, I married Dory,” Connor said in amazement. The light bulb went on? He shook his head and concentrated on the other thought. “But I used Heather’s name when I made my vows.”
“Ian is going to Inverary to fetch your solicitor, but if we’re right, the marriage was invalid from day one. She was under age and under coercion. Even if the marriage was valid, perhaps it was not to Dory but to Heather. Maybe it was more like a proxy marriage, and she died not a month later.” Emmy turned her palms up to grasp his hands. “I don’t think you were ever a married man, Connor. If you were, you were widowed not a month later. Dorcas Stuart was never your wife and was free to marry Ian.”
Connor closed his eyes and envisioned the chain of events and let the facts roll over him. If were only true! But, what should be done about her duplicity? Ten years of deception and betrayal. How could he let that pass? “What was Ian’s response to all of this?”
“I think he’ll be fine, hopefully sooner than later.” She pushed herself and scooted into his lap before dropping her arms around his neck. She was comforted when his arms wrapped around her waist. “Maybe later than sooner. I imagine it would be difficult to discover the woman you love had lied for a decade.”
“He might never forgive her.”
“Would you forgive me?” she asked then added. “Eventually, of course. A period of anger and resentment is, after all, justifiable.”
Connor looked down into her beautiful face and knew that he could forgive her almost anything. Some things were beyond forgiveness, of course. Infidelity. But a lie even of this magnitude, he
