Her sharp gasp punctuated the air and she lifted her hands in the air.
Dried blood flecked her skin, lining the creases and flaking from her knuckles like bits of rust.
Connor’s heart sank deep into the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t yet had a chance to clean her hands.
Her fingers plucked frantically at the plaid wrapped around her. The wool peeled away and revealed the blood-soaked gown beneath.
Connor tried to pull the shawl from the iron grip of her hands to cover the sight once more. “Lass, ye dinna—”
“You climbed the wall and almost got caught.” Her breath was coming faster and her eyes had a wild shine to them. “I called to the guard and I had his attention, but then something made him look at you. I didn’t think, I just grabbed my dagger and threw it.”
Her eyes shut and a tear leaked from beneath her pressed-together lids. “Oh God, I killed him.”
She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands in silent horror.
Her eyes widened and shifted back to him. “I killed a man.” She held her palms out to him, putting the evidence of her act on display.
Connor grabbed the bowl of water and sloshed the cloth over her hands. Orange-red water trickled from her hands and pooled unseen against the dark floor.
She did not stop his efforts.
“He would have killed us,” Connor said, as gently as he could.
A choked cry came from deep within her chest and cut through his heart as sharp and sure as any blade.
Her hands were clean now, but she continued to stare at them as if they were still creased with blood. “No, no. I should have waited. I should have called to him. Surely there was more I could have—”
He dropped the rag and gripped her by the shoulders. “Ye did what ye had to.”
Her lower lip quivered and her eyes were lit with the gleam of unshed tears. She looked so painfully tortured, he did the only thing he could think to help—he pulled her into his arms and let her bury her head in his chest.
Her sobs came then, in great racking gulps.
As he stood there, holding her trembling back and bearing witness to the sound of her innocence breaking, he knew he’d been correct in not teaching the girls to kill.
It was best left to him, the one whose hands were already stained with blood.
• • •
Almost all the blood was gone.
Small flecks of maroon dotted Ariana’s knuckles and formed narrow lines in the creases of her palms, only visible if she stared hard enough.
Which she did now.
She dragged a fingernail across the sensitive pad of her hand, ignoring the discomfort in the interest of clearing her hands of their guilt.
For surely her soul would forever be stained.
The fire blazed with deceptively merry energy to her right and dried her freshly washed hair. Scrubbing her skin and changing her clothing had only made her feel physically more comfortable.
Connor sat across from her with a stick in his hands, whittling with feigned concentration. She didn’t have to look up to know his concerned gaze fell on her periodically. She could sense it the way a patient felt an overprotective nurse hovering over them in their sleep.
Ariana watched the flames in the hearth as they licked and danced over one another in a greedy tangle upward before wicking away into a curl of smoke.
Connor was looking at her.
“I’m fine, Connor,” she said softly.
“It concerns me when ye stare like that.” He hesitated and did not speak again until she pulled her gaze from the fire toward him. “Ye stared like that earlier, as if ye couldna hear me or see me. Do ye remember?”
Ariana tried to think and frowned. There was much she didn’t remember. She could recall everything until she fell when they were on the outskirts of town, then nothing until she saw Connor’s panic-stricken face in their small room at Urquhart Castle.
Her face went hot with the memory. What a fool she must have looked, to have cried so. It made her plunge deeper into misery to know she had obviously exhibited more weakness she could now not even remember.
“I can’t recall,” she said honestly.
She didn’t necessarily know if she wanted to.
“Ye were there before me, but ye werena. I dinna know if ye could hear me.” A sheepish smile showed on his lips and it transformed his face from that of a hard man of authority to something far more boyish and charming. “I spoke to ye while ye were like that in case ye could hear.”
The look on his face was pleasant on a night where little was. “What did you talk to me about?” she asked, simultaneously curious at what might make a man like him sheepish, and regretful at not having been in her right mind to properly hear.
Connor shrugged. “Ach, no’ anything of interest, really.” He slid the blade of his small knife down the stick until a sliver of pale wood coiled up and fell away to join several others strewn upon the ground below. “Silly stories about trouble Cora and I got into together as bairns, memories of my ma—no’ anything special.”
She was all the more poignantly regretful now to have missed his speech now that she knew its subject.
Through the course of their trip, and in spite of the silence for the latter two days of their journey, she had learned much. All the pieces of him she knew were falling into place and creating a picture she was desperate to see the whole of.
She put her weight on one hand and leaned closer, hoping her eagerness would not be too apparent. “Would you tell me more now?” she asked.
His brow furrowed and then went smooth with the warmth of his laugh. “What would ye possibly want to know?” He swept the blade down the stick and another curl of wood joined the others.
She sat back on her heels and thought the matter over. Surely at this point she had as many questions as the night sky had stars.
“You said this was your castle,” Ariana said. “How is it your castle and why does it now belong to King James?”
The smile on Connor’s face faded. At first she thought she’d ruined this one opportunity, but then he spoke: “It is mine because it has been in the family for generations. It belongs to King James because the man who took it from my father died and the king confiscated all his belongings.”
“How did they take it from your father?” She thought of the castle’s front, the height of the walls, how thick they were, how solid everything seemed.
Connor set his whittling down and regarded her with a long, wary stare. “There was a great betrayal from those we trusted. It’s a gruesome story, one I dinna think is appropriate, given—”
“Please.” It was begging, she knew. She knew too she ought to be above that. And on any other night, she would be—but not tonight. “Please tell me. I want to know.”
He tilted his head to the side.
“I’d like the distraction,” Ariana added quickly.
His lips pursed and he studied her a moment longer. “Verra well.”
Something warmed through Ariana at his resigned agreement to share. He was trusting her with something far deeper, far more significant than ever before.
Chapter 21
Connor did not often let his thoughts trail back to the fateful day of his father’s death. The memories were far too taxing.
Far too painful.
Ariana waited patiently in front of him, the focus of her wide eyes fixed steadily upon him.
“I was away from the castle when it was first attacked,” he said. “There was a valid reason for it, but that’s for another time, aye?”
Now was not the time to get into the betrayal, nor the brotherly affection he could not deny—even after all these years.
Kenneth Gordon.
Damn him. Even after Connor had vowed not to mention him, not to think of him, the image of the dark-haired man Connor had considered a brother was forefront in his mind.
Ariana nodded. Connor pushed aside Kenneth’s image and continued on. “I had Co
ra with me. We heard the sounds of battle before we saw it.”
Cora’s hand was hot in his, and even in his anger he worried he might be clamping down on her slender fingers too hard. He loosened his grip and opened his mouth to speak when a loud pop sounded in the distance, like the blast of a pistol. The wind blew against them and carried with it the raucous cry of men’s voices and the acrid odor of gunpowder.
All coming from Urquhart Castle.
Connor’s muscles bunched along the back of his neck. He remembered too well when they had finally seen the castle. “Urquhart was under attack by another laird, a trusted friend to our family.”
Kenneth Gordon’s da, laird of the Gordon clan.
Connor didn’t say his name, though. It meant nothing to Ariana, and meant far too much to him.
“I tried to leave Cora in a safe place so I could help defend the castle. But the lass always had too much spirit for her own good and followed behind me to join the fight.” He shook his head. “I dinna know she’d do it. I should have, but I dinna. I was thinking only of the battle. It was…”
He trailed off, remembering.
Blood bathed everything in a wash of thick crimson. It left the ground underfoot slick and seasoned the air with its metallic odor.
Connor slid his blade free and let his body explode toward the attackers, his rage building with all the bodies he ran past. Soldiers and unarmed men alike struck down by blades.
The women and children were somehow blessedly absent, most likely sequestered in the church.
It was then he caught sight of the structure, and its gaping door.
And the grisly shadows moving within.
The women and children were not being spared after all.
“It was chaos,” Connor concluded. Divulging details to a woman recently horrified by violence was hardly wise.
“I was fighting among my father’s men, but we were severely outnumbered. I’d been determined to stay and fight until my dying breath when I heard Cora cry out.” The scream echoed in his mind like a nightmare. The hairs on his arms rose. “That’s when I knew she’d followed me. My castle needed me, but so did she. I had to make a choice.” He clenched his fist. “And I chose her.”
Ariana said nothing as he spoke. She nodded in quiet appreciation.
She knew.
She understood.
As he knew she would.
“I managed to fight the men off Cora,” he continued, “and dragged her away from the castle.”
Rage pumped through his body like liquid fire. He didn’t remember killing the men in his blind fury, but they lay suddenly dead at his feet and their blood spattered the stonework around them. Cora allowed herself to be pulled up and dragged away without protest.
Together they ran from the castle until Connor’s legs burned from the effort. Until he was comfortable she was far enough away.
“This time ye dinna move, aye?” His demand came out in a growl. He’d never spoken to Cora so, but did not wait for a reply. He turned back toward the castle below, intent on returning to help—and stopped.
He was already too late.
Connor had to swallow before he could continue. “In the short amount of time it took to get Cora to safety, the Gordons defeated the Grant men and captured my da.” He squeezed his fist tighter, until his knuckles ached. “There were at least twenty men surrounding him. My da never stood a chance.”
Connor was too far away to help, unable do anything but watch in helpless horror. The men closed in on his father’s proud form like a circle of vultures. Their blades flashed in the weak sunlight and then emerged red before plunging in once more.
Cora cried out behind him, but he swallowed down the sound of his own grief. He needed to be strong. For Cora.
Ariana’s mouth parted in shock. “They killed him?”
Connor nodded. “Aye, and then shoved his body over the edge of the castle near the water. I went back that night—”
A warning tingled in the back of his mind and made him cut off his words.
He’d said too much.
“What happened when you went back?” Ariana asked. Concern shone in her eyes. The fire had started to die and left the glowing embers to emit their fading light into the room. “Did they capture you?”
“Nay, I was too careful.”
“Then what?” She slid closer to where he sat on the hard wooden floor and placed her hand on his. Her palm was warm and soft, as was her gaze.
Connor stared at her a long moment. He’d never told anyone about that night. Not even Cora knew.
But then, Cora didn’t know a lot of things.
No one did.
“I found his body,” he said. “And buried him.”
Connor stood in the shadowed forest on a night with no moon and stared into the freshly dug hole where his father’s twisted body lay. Death had petrified his limbs in the awkward shape he’d lain in after the fall. The famed Shadow, so strong, so proud and capable, now a twisted corpse buried in the forest like a thief.
Coarse grains of salt still clung to Connor’s palm from the small pile he’d set upon his da’s chest.
“Forgive me, Da.” But what he wanted forgiveness for, Connor did not know. His failure to protect the castle, the crude burial for the father he could not save, or for the weight of the coin and signet ring laying heavy in his pocket.
Even now, three years later, the pain of his loss crushed Connor’s heart.
He shouldn’t have shared as much as he had, yet now he couldn’t stop. Part of him wanted her to understand how awful he really was, to know the extent of his crimes against his own family. “Before I buried him, I took what coin he had on him as well as his signet ring.”
Connor’s head dropped forward with the burden of his many wrongs.
“I needed it to care for Cora,” he added. “To see her safe in a world where I trusted no one.”
The justification did little to quell his own stifling guilt. He had robbed his father of all his worldly possessions before burying his crooked body in unconsecrated ground.
Ariana squeezed his hand. “You were looking after your sister. He would have understood. In fact, I think he would have been grateful you’d even taken the risk to bury him.”
Connor thought of his father then, the towering man with dark hair and eyes crinkling at the corners. The burden of guilt had always been so present, he’d never truly thought of what his father would say.
“Nay,” Connor replied decidedly. “He’d have thought me daft for risking myself for something so foolish as a man who was dead.”
He gazed down at Ariana, wishing he could see himself as she did. Somehow she managed to find the good in him and overlook the bad.
And there was much bad to see.
He slid his hand over her cheek, intending just to touch.
But she was so sweetly soft against the pads of his fingers, he found himself caressing the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the supple swell of her lower lip.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
And though he lowered his mouth to hers, intending just to kiss her, he knew there would be far more.
• • •
Ariana was selfish.
She knew she should not allow Connor to kiss her, that he might be angry at himself later for having done so, and yet she reveled in the touch of his warm lips on hers.
The horror of the evening hovered in her thoughts and swelled up in her mind. She wanted the odor of blood blotted out with his spicy, outdoor scent. She wanted the clammy skin of a cooling body burned away by his touch.
She wanted Connor to be the one to make her forget.
His kiss was tender, gentle.
It left her wanting more.
She brushed her mouth against his, back and forth, once, twice, letting the heat of their lips taunt one another.
He’d shared much with her when he told her what happened at Urquhart, far more than she’d expected to hear. Her heart ached for
him. Not with pity, but with the need to heal.
They were both hurt. She’d known as much long before he spoke.
Perhaps together they could find solace. At least on this one night.
Connor pressed his mouth to hers and stilled her teasing with a solid, hot kiss.
A moan vibrated in her throat. She brushed her tongue against his lips in silent demand for more.
This time she would not be shy.
She knew what she wanted now and would be bold enough to get it.
His mouth opened, and his tongue swept against hers.
Excitement prickled over her flesh and her heartbeat thrummed faster.
Connor’s fingers threaded up through her hair and he tightened his grip at the nape of her neck. Tingles of pleasure shot through her scalp.
Their breath came harder with their eagerness to kiss and taste.
Ariana flicked her tongue against the velvety smoothness of his. Connor caught her lower lip and bit it gently between his teeth.
As he’d done with her nipple the night at Kindrochit.
Oh God, that… She wanted that again.
And more.
She tugged at the lacing of her bodice in brazen invitation. One Connor readily accepted with a groan. The sound was low, like a growl, primal. It left heat throbbing between her legs, more powerful than before.
She was a maiden, yes, but she’d been at court long enough to hear the talk of what happened between a man and a woman.
And that was what she wanted.
Now.
With him.
The simple cord of the bodice made a quiet pop as it was pulled free of the fabric. The tension of it around her torso eased and the warm air in the room whispered against her skin.
Connor’s hands cupped her breasts and his kisses turned hungrier, desperate almost, and they fueled her own desire for more.
His fingers rolled against the tender little nub of her nipple and she cried out against his mouth.
He trailed his mouth down her neck in a sprinkle of kisses, down lower, as he’d done before.
Her heart slammed in her chest with anticipation.
Highland Spy Page 17