Page 27 of Scot of Deception
“Nay one daes,” Blaine pointed out. “But dinnae fash. I willnae let anythin’ happen tae ye.”
It was easier said than done. Kathleen would have loved to stop worrying long enough to fall asleep, but it didn’t seem to be a possibility that night.
“Tell me somethin’,” she requested. “Anythin’, I just want tae stop thinkin’ that I’m about tae be eaten by wolves.”
Behind her, Blaine let out a low chuckle, the puff of breath tickling the back of Kathleen’s neck. “They’ll eat me first an’ they’ll be too full tae eat ye too.”
“Blaine!” Kathleen protested with a mock sob. “How will that help me?”
“Well, ye could run.”
“An’ then other wolves would eat me! Dinnae frighten me like this. Come now, tell me a story.”
“I dinnae ken any good stories,” Blaine said.
“Then tell me about ye.”
That was Blaine’s least favorite topic of conversation, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Kathleen to get all the information that she so desperately craved out of him. With a sigh, Blaine shifted a little closer, his knee bumping against the back of her thigh.
“There isnae much tae say,” he said. “I was born a Farquharson, born an’ raised in Braemar Castle. Me faither’s name was Callum an’ me maither’s Lilly.”
Was? Have they passed?
Kathleen didn’t know if it was proper to broach the subject and so she didn’t, but with the way Blaine’s voice caught in his throat as he spoke about them, she could only imagine it was true.
“I… I had a sister, too,” Blaine continued. “She died very young. There was an attack an’ she was killed in it.”
Kathleen couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him, losing not only his parents, but also his sister. Did he have anyone in this world? Or was he all alone, roaming from place to place for his missions from the clan?
She couldn’t think about her life without her parents or her cousins in it. Her family was the most important thing in her life, even if she often quarreled with her parents. They were her rocks, the pillars on which her entire life stood. Without them, she would be left unmoored.
But she couldn’t remember an attack at the Farquharson clan in recent years. Blaine had said that his sister had died young, though Kathleen didn’t know if that meant she had been a child or a young woman. Perhaps it had been before her time or when she was too young to remember.
“When was that?” she asked.
“A little over eleven years ago,” Blaine said, and from the grief in his tone, Kathleen could tell he was counting down to the day, so he couldn’t possibly be mistaken.
But neither was she. Clan Farquharson was a good ally of the Mackintoshes and an attack in Braemar Castle would have been widely known.
“There was an attack in the castle eleven years ago?” she asked tentatively. Despite her certainty, there was still a chance, no matter how small, that she was mistaken.
Behind her, Blaine seemed to tense up, pulling back from her ever so slightly. For a few moments, he was quiet. When he finally spoke, he didn’t respond to her question, but rather asked one of his own—one that surprised her so much that it was enough to draw all her attention away from her doubts, her mind grinding to a halt.
“Have ye ever laid with a man like this?”
Kathleen sputtered, her head whipping around to glare at Blaine over her shoulder. It was just a tactic to distract her, of course; she was perfectly aware of that and yet she still allowed it, any desire to ask further questions about his childhoodand his life dissipating in favor of setting the record straight regarding her own life.
“I would never!”
“Nae even with a laddie?” Blaine teased. “Dinnae fash, I willnae tell.”
Huffing and puffing as she rolled over to face Blaine, Kathleen said, “Absolutely nae! How dare ye even suggest such a thing? I’m a lady!”
“Aye, that ye are,” Blaine said. “But ye’re also nae like any other lady I’ve ever met.”
It sounded like a compliment to Kathleen, though she was not so quick to receive it as one. “That daesnae mean I would ever allow a man this close.”
“Ye’re allowin’ it now,” Blaine pointed out, much to Kathleen’s frustration and embarrassment. She pressed her lips into a thin line, gritting her teeth as she tried to come up with an excuse.
