by Paula Quinn
“What?” he asked, just as softly. “What d’ye see?”
She searched his gaze and he was tempted to bare his soul to her.
“I see sadness and anger. I would—”
He dipped his head and leaned forward when she looked away. “Ye would what?”
“I would like to make you smile.”
He wanted to smile. Aye, she made him want to do more than that. It surprised him how easily she chased his demons away, how she tempted him to cast away his fears and let her in. He knew he was a fool but he leaned down a bit farther and brushed his mouth along hers. It was a brief, tantalizing touch that sent waves of desire coursing through him. He’d thought he could never feel such need again. She proved him wrong. He moved away before he could press his mouth to hers and let himself fall completely under the spell she was weaving over him. Anyway, Gram could wake up at any moment and smash him over the head with one of her jars.
“Did losing her create the armor you hold around your heart?”
Aye. He wanted to tell her she had it right.
“Tell me of her. What was her name?”
“Alison,” he found himself saying. “We met in a brothel. The last place I’d think to look for love.”
He watched a slight brush of scarlet streak across her cheeks. He wanted to smile. Hell, he was telling her about Alison and he wanted to smile.
“She was a… lady of pleasure?” Temperance asked, cutting a glance to Gram to see if she still slept.
“Aye, m’ brother had brought me to Fortune’s Smile to buy m’ first…” He looked at her and she quirked her mouth at him, understanding what he didn’t say. “… time with a woman,” he supplied anyway.
He told her about how determined Alison had been to see him get well after he’d been shot and stabbed by the Winthers of Newcastle. According to his brother Malcolm, Cailean’s wounds had been very serious but Alison had never left his side. She was the reason he was alive.
“She was in love with you,” Temperance guessed out loud. “Who shot her?”
He told her, at first with reluctance. But then, as he opened up more, it became easier to tell her the whole story.
“My father died in my arms too,” she told him softly when he’d finished. She dipped her gaze to hide her eyes from him. He reached out before he could stop himself and touched his fingers to her chin.
“Dinna be ashamed of yer pain, else ’twill burrow deeper and deeper until it becomes a part of ye.”
“Mayhap I want it to become a part of me.”
He shook his head. “Nae, ’twill turn ye into me.”
The tips of her lips turned up into a guileless smile that left him feeling as if he’d just run up Blà Bheinn in Camlochlin.
“I don’t see the consequence in that, Mr. Grant.”
I’m the reason yer father is dead. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her and then… climb into a hole and never come out.
“Ye dinna see the consequence of bein’ empty and guarded?”
He watched her shaking her head. He watched every nuance of the breath she inhaled, the slightest quirk of her brow. He’d found her beautiful already, but bathed in the candlelight she made him want to pen ten verses.
But she didn’t know him, or the things he’d done since becoming a Black Rider. If she knew, she would hate him.
Wasn’t that what he wanted? It would make ignoring her effect on him easier. He opened his mouth, mayhap to finally tell her the truth. But she spoke and cut him off before he confessed.
“Being empty,” she told him, “just means something must be filled. We can fill it with either stone and mortar, or new dreams and a hope for happiness. Stone and mortar will soon grow too heavy to keep with you.”
Cailean nodded slightly. It grew heavier each day. But she was wrong about the void. Stone and mortar couldn’t fill it.
“Which will ye choose?” he asked her. He didn’t want her to become like him.
“I haven’t yet decided. I’m still too angry to know anything else.”
“D’ye ride?” he asked.
“Aye. Why do you ask?”
“Ridin’ hard and fast helps with the anger. It must be a strong beast to be able to withstand all you’ve got to give.”
He realized what he’d said and how it must have sounded to her ears when a crimson streak stole across her cheeks. He hadn’t meant to—well, in truth, he did think about her in his bed.
“I’m afraid all our mounts are old and slow,” she told him. “The anger I carry requires a stallion.”
His thoughts were already heading that way, so he let them take their own path. Images filled his head of her thighs coiled around his waist and her head tossed back while she rode him until she was spent. He wanted to put his arms around her and draw her into his embrace. He wanted to look in her eyes and lose himself in her smile, kiss her and ask her to take him from the dark. He wanted to take her hand and let her lead him, and then he wanted to free her from the sorrow he’d caused.
“Mayhap”—his smile couldn’t help but linger when he spoke—“I could help.”
Chapter Eleven
He lost the woman he loved, Gram,” Temperance told her grandmother the next day when she stepped back inside the kitchen carrying a bucket of water. She poured some into a large metal pot, then helped Gram set the pot over the flames of the large open oven. “She perished in his arms, shot dead by a man with a pistol. Isn’t that the saddest story you’ve ever heard?”
Gram began chopping carrots and paused to give Temperance a good looking-over with her unpatched eye. “Aye, verra sad indeed.”
“I think my father would have liked him.”
“Mr. Grant is a verra likable fellow.”
“Aye,” Temperance agreed, “he is.”
“And he’s quite handsome as well.”
“Oh?” Temperance picked up a stalk of ginger and began grating it with a knife. “I hadn’t noticed.” She left the table and tossed the ginger into the pot, and watched Gram do the same with her carrots.
“So then.” Gram walked back to the chopping table and started on the onions next. “I’m to believe ye’ve gone blind?”
“No, of course not, Gram, but I’ve been busy tending him. I haven’t had time to admire him.”
“Good, then I don’t have to be concerned about his sad stories or his beguiling smiles stealing your heart.”
Temperance stopped cutting herbs and looked at her grandmother across the table. Gram would understand, wouldn’t she? She loved Temperance as much as any one person could love another. “My heart has to belong to someone in order for it to be stolen. And in case you don’t know, William’s heart is lost to Marion.”
“I do know,” Gram surprised her by saying. “Truly, gel, d’ye think I let William leave this house without telling me? I’m disappointed in him for not telling us. My concern is fer ye, my little dove. I don’t want ye to wed a man who loves another.”
“I don’t want that either, Gram,” Temperance admitted quietly. Wasn’t Gram the one who often told her that her mother had died giving her life and that Temperance was to make certain she lived a life worthy of it?
“There is no fire between us, Gram. But William still wants to go through with it. For the safety of the village.”
“Aye, I know that too.”
Temperance couldn’t help but smile despite the prospect of her future. Gram might be old, one-eyed, and slightly bent over, but she knew everything that went on in Linavar and in her own household. She’d even known about her son Seth’s upcoming nuptials with the widow Anne Gilbert. She was wise and strong-spirited and well loved by everyone in the hamlet.
“I will speak to him about it.”
Temperance dropped her knife and ran around the table to gather her grandmother into her arms. “Thank you, Gram,” she whispered lovingly into her gray hair. “I love you.”
Gram nodded and sniffed, pretending that the onions had affected her.
“I didn’t know that,” Gram confessed, pricking up her ears while she pushed aside her onions and reached for the skinned and quartered remains of a roasted hare.
“His brother is the Earl of Huntley and Cailean… Mr. Grant assured William that he would enlist his brother’s aid.”
“And why would Cailean… Mr. Grant lend such aid?”
Temperance ignored Gram’s knowing query. She opened her mouth to give an answer but realized she didn’t have one.
“Might it be because Mr. Grant wishes to remove William from yer future?” Gram asked. “If William’s heart is lost to Marion then bringing her back would ensure no marriage.”
Temperance followed her to the oven with the tray of meat. “Why would he care what William is to me?”
Gram cast her an incredulous look as if Temperance should know the answer. She bent to the pot and added the meat to their stew. “He likes ye, gel. ’Tis clear to see.”
Was it? “He’s very guarded, Gram. I don’t think he wants to care for anyone.”
“Well, if anyone can change that, ’tis ye, love,” Gram said gently. “But I cannot help but think that if not for Marion, ye would find happiness with William. And ye’d be safe. That’s what yer father wanted.”
Temperance smiled, remembering her conversation with her father the morning they returned from Kenmore. “He knew my heart, and remember, ’twas he who told me that love doesn’t come around often. When it does, he always said, ’tis worth whatever it costs.”
Gram’s gaze on her softened. “Tie yer hair back, child. Lest ye set yerself ablaze.” Tender hands, aged and wrinkled and swollen at the joints, smoothed over Temperance’s thick curls, lifting the heavy tresses off her shoulders.
“I miss him, Gram.”
“So do I.” Gram brushed her knuckles across her granddaughter’s cheek, swiping away a tear.
Temperance leaned in and kissed her face, then looked up at Cailean standing in the doorway. She hadn’t heard him leaving her room or coming into the kitchen.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Temperance straightened and took in the sight of him on his feet. Damnation, but he looked fit and healthy standing there with his shirt and plaid stretched across his broad shoulders, his legs long and straight in his woolen trews and boots.
“I feel restless. I canna remain in bed…” He stepped into the kitchen, then paused when Temperance wiped her eyes. “Is everything all right?”
“All is well,” Gram assured him.
He nodded, looking relieved, but as he stepped closer to Temperance, his relief faded into concern. “Ye were cryin’?”
“Just a wee bit,” she confessed, moving toward him. She stopped only when she came toe to toe with him. She reached up to rest her palm against his forehead. No fever. But when she searched for the cool detachment in his steady gaze, she could find only warmth. She didn’t want to look away. She wanted to delve deeper, even at the risk of drowning. “My father,” she explained. After losing Alison, he would understand how she felt. “I was just telling Gram how I miss him.”
He severed their gaze and looked away for a moment. When he returned his attention to her, he wore the bleak cloak of winter frost over him once again.
“Someone recently told me,” she said as he stepped away from her and moved toward the nearest exit, “’twill eat me from the inside if I don’t speak of it from time to time.”
He stopped at the back doors and turned to look at her, some kind of battle being fought behind the deceptive winter of those eyes. “They were correct.”
He opened the doors and looked toward the castle for a moment, and then he stepped outside.
Temperance made a move to go after him but paused to look over her shoulder at Gram. She wasn’t looking for approval. She just wanted her grandmother to know she was going. No protest came as Temperance hurried out the door. What was wrong with him? Had her mentioning her father brought back memories of his Alison? She wanted to ask him if he thought he’d ever love again, but she didn’t. In fact, she didn’t say a word to him. She just trekked behind him, keeping a short distance away.
“Are ye goin’ to follow me all the way to Lyon’s Ridge?” he called out to her without turning.
“Is that where you’re going, unarmed?”
“Ye think me a fool?”
She remained quiet and he finally stopped and turned to cast her a hard look. “Ye insult me.”
“It likely won’t be the last time.”
Damnation, but he was completely beautiful when he looked incredulous, most assuredly in league with angels. With his large slanted eyes and wide pouting lips, he seemed almost the epitome of innocence. But no angel possessed such a jaw chiseled from granite. Purity and virility in the same dark, cold man. She understood exactly what a woman like Alison would find most attractive about him. It would be difficult for any woman to keep from falling for him. The question was, how did he remain pure in a castle filled with prostitutes?
He didn’t move out of her path until she almost stepped into him. She felt him bend to inhale the scent of her hair as she passed him.
“Well?” She turned to him. “Where are we going?”
Back to brooding, he spread his arms out before him and presented the snow-dusted glen to her. “Seems like a good place to clear one’s head.”
It was. It was a vast hollow where heartbeats echoed off the braes and cries disappeared on the wind.
Instead of looking around at the vast beauty surrounding her, she kept her gaze on him. He was a lot like the land around her, hard and frozen, danger dressed in brutal magnificence. She wondered if he’d always been so somber. Had losing Alison changed him or had he always been serious and thoughtful? What would bring another smile to his lips? What made him laugh?
She watched him while he came to stand next to her. Close, so close that the heat from his body covered her and titillated her senses. How was it possible that she felt safer standing beside him than she had ever felt before? She traced his chiseled profile with her eyes while he spread his gaze over the four Munros. He inhaled the fresh, cold air and closed his eyes.
“Yer wounds are healing nicely. Any pain?”
“Nae.”
“Did I say something to make you pout?”
He opened his eyes and turned to face her fully. She tried to concentrate on the topic at hand, but for a moment or two, all she could do was take in the rugged brilliance of his face. She thought it might be better if she kept her mouth shut, for the flash of his gaze was like lightning through a storm.
“I can assure ye, I dinna pout.”
She rolled her eyes when he turned away again.
“Do you know,” she pressed on, “that some people live out the whole of their lives without finding true love?”
“So?”
“So instead of being sad over what you’ve lost, consider being thankful for what you had.”
His eyes swept over her like a rushing wave, but within the storm, a speck of light danced across the surface. The wind beat against his hair, snapping it across his face like war paint.
She hadn’t meant to be insulting. She was just trying to help. Hell, she knew what she suggested was difficult, mayhap the most difficult thing a human heart could ever do. How does one even begin to turn grief into gratitude?
“I must do it as well,” she confessed. “I don’t know how, but I will.”
She expected him to warn her, walk away from her, accuse her of not understanding.
Instead he untied his plaid from around his shoulder and offered her a place beneath it.
“Ye shouldna have followed me oot,” he said against her ear when she stepped into his sheltering embrace. “The day is too brisk.”
He was probably right, and she most definitely shouldn’t h
ave accepted his offer. His body against hers was warm, lean, and unyielding. Her blood raced through her veins like liquid fire, leaving her a bit light-headed.
She wondered if he could feel her heart thumping between them. What in blazes had come over her? She never felt anything like this with William.
“I’m not unfamiliar with the climate,” she said, trying to keep her tone steady. He’d be leaving Linavar soon. There was no point in her taking an interest in him. “We have a bit of time before we freeze to death.”
Was that a soft chuckle she heard above her, or the wind over the braes? The sound of it brought a smile to her face as she tilted her head to look up at him. She found him gazing at her already, his eyes warm and his smile… oh, Gram was right about his smile. It beguiled the breath right out of her.
“In truth, I wouldna mind it so much,” he told her with every trace of frost and all his weighty thoughts gone from his expression—for now, at least. What remained were his shallow breath, an indelible smile that exposed a slightly crooked and wholly endearing front tooth, and eyes that drank her in and searched her soul until she would have promised him anything. “—If these were m’ last moments on this earth.”
She wanted to ask him why. Did it have to do with her? Was Gram correct? Did he like her after all? But her courage failed her. She felt anxious suddenly, not in control of herself or her emotions. She wanted to fall into his arms and kiss his mouth that had just confessed the most romantic declaration her ears had ever heard. Every brush of his fingers along her shoulder, her neck, tempted her to do the opposite of what everyone else expected. For a terrifying moment she considered living with him… or leaving with him. How far would she follow him? Why him? Why now, when her father was gone and she couldn’t hear his thoughts on the man she thought she could find real love with, given the chance?
“Well, I already found you half-dead twice now.” She took a step away, separating from him. She needed to. He made her lose her head, and if she wanted to survive the Murdochs, she needed to keep it. They’d already taken Marion. It was only a matter of time before they took her too. “I’d prefer not to have to drag you back to the house by myself. I’d be too exhausted to run if a group of Black Riders appeared over the hill. So let us head back.”