“Bea is my friend.” Will shrugged. “It felt wrong not to tell her.”
David cursed under his breath. Alison was right about Will having a mind of his own. How could David rule his clan with authority when his wife and young brothers challenged his commands?
“Why didn’t ye tell Alison?” Will asked.
David felt a twinge of guilt. He had intended to inform her, but the time was not right yet.
“It was my decision to make,” he said. “My wife ought to be grateful I’ve done well by her daughters by arranging for their future.”
Will gave him a long sideways glance. “Ye don’t understand lasses much, do ye?”
CHAPTER 28
David told himself that Alison was a reasonable lass who would accept his decision, as she ought, and even see the wisdom of it in time. All the same, he drew in a deep breath before he opened their bedchamber door. Alison stood waiting for him with her arms folded and a strained expression.
“Ye haven’t taken it upon yourself to arrange my daughters’ marriages, have ye?” she asked with a brittle smile.
He thought women were supposed to confuse a man with subtlety. Her direct question caught him off guard, and he hesitated too long.
“Then it’s true,” she said, her voice rising.
“As their stepfather, ’tis my responsibility to secure their future,” he said, attempting to sidestep the question.
“What precisely have ye done?” she said, looking at him as if he were the devil’s serpent.
“I’ve betrothed them to my brothers.”
“Ye did this without a word to me?” she said with fire in her eyes. “Ye know my daughters areeverythingto me.Everything!”
“Their welfare is my responsibility,” he said.
She propped a hand on her hip and glared at him. “When did ye plan to tell me?”
“I would have shared my plans with ye, but I knew ye would react poorly—as ye have.”
“My daughters are little more than babes,” she said. “Ye had no need to act so quickly and when everything is uncertain.”
“Uncertain?” he said, his own temper rising. If she still harbored some notion of being able to leave him, he meant to set her straight. “There’s no uncertainty about this. You, your daughters, and these lands are mine to do with as I see fit.”
“Don’t ye dare speak of my daughters as if they’re your property to dispose of as ye please,” she snapped. “They aremydaughters.Myresponsibility. Ye have no right.”
“I have every right, and ye damn well know it,” he said. “What I do is for their benefit.”
“Their benefit? Ye use them as pawns and tell me it’s for their benefit?”
“I’ll do far better by them than either the Blackadders or your family would,” he said. “I’d never see them harmed, but Ishallbind them and these lands to my brothers and my clan.”
“This is unforgivable.”
“You’re a Douglas, for God’s sake. Ye knew from the time they were conceived that their marriages would be arranged to bring lands and great families together.”
“If you’d left me a widow, it would bemydecision,” she said, thumping her hand against her chest. “Iwould put their happiness first.”
“Ye speak as if I’m giving them to foul men who’ll mistreat them,” he said. “What is your complaint? I’ve betrothed them to my only brothers. You’re fond of Will and Robbie, and they’ll make your daughters fine husbands one day.”
“Ye haven’t known Beatrix and Margaret a fortnight. How could ye have any notion of who would be appropriate husbands for them?” she said. “And we both know it would make no difference what sort of men your brothers become. Ye did this for the Blackadder lands.”
“Of course I didn’t take the castle just to give it up,” he said. “But I could find no better husbands for the lasses in all of Scotland.”