Page 30 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
He knew what she’d seen, but he looked up, too. The castle tower, far above as if in the clouds, jutted out over the cliff, the sentinel of Carlyle lands. The walls on either side were crumbling inward, but that proud tower held on.
Almost breathless, she said, “That is . . . amazing. It is yours?”
“The ancient birthplace of my ancestors. But ’tis a ruin now. Rather an ironic symbol of my chiefdom, aye?”
“I disagree,” she insisted. “You may be outlawed, but it’s a brave, valiant thing you’re doing, and your ancestors would be proud.”
She could have punched him in the gut and it might have wounded him less. Brave and valiant? He wanted to laugh his disgust at himself. If she only knew what he was capable of, what he’d done to her in the name of family pride and vengeance. And he would change none of it. Her father had to understand what the parents of those stolen boys felt like. It might help stop the kidnappings.
The wind picked up, and the familiar wail began.
She stared upward. “It’s coming from up there, isn’t it? At night it seems quite frightening.”
And that was the point. He shrugged. “I’m so used to it I don’t even hear it anymore.”
“I had wondered if my head wound was making me hear things,” she admitted, her mouth twisted in wry amusement. “What is it?”
He looked up, even as he realized he didn’t want to meet her eyes as he lied to her yet again. “’Tis just the way the wind moves through the ruins.”
“Could we go up?”
“Nay, did I not just say there is danger there?”
She blinked at him. “Oh, very well. Did you grow up there?”
“We had a manor in a nearby village.”
“And your father ruled from there.”
“If ye call what he did ruling.”
She eyed him with curiosity, and he didn’t like having revealed too much with his sarcasm.
“He’d be proud of you,” she said quietly, “whatever your relationship used to be.”
“Nay, he would not. I vowed to be a better chief than he, thought I could not possibly be worse. I was wrong.”
Frowning, she opened her mouth as if to contradict him.
“I’m not an honorable man,” he warned her. “Ye already know that.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks again. “I don’t know what you’ve done, or why you punish yourself, but you can’t stop me from thinking well of you. You rescued me; you rescued those children. You’ve given me a place to stay when I have no one. And Finn will see that you can be trusted.”
He didn’t think his guilt could keep growing, not after everything her father had done in the name of her family, but grow it did, until he felt cut by it.
But still, he wanted her. The green-and-yellow bruises beneath her eyes only reminded him that her beauty was not solely what he desired. It was her, the woman who’d lost everything, yet served his men with patience and gratitude. She could have reacted to her trauma in fear and neediness; instead she’d tried to do her part, had given herself over to their mission.
Every second he watched her mouth as she spoke only reminded him that he wanted to take it, invade it, claim it. Every graceful movement of her body as she walked past him, sending a little glance sideways at him, made him want to drag her beneath him, made him want to show her the power he could wield over her with passion. She would feel as helpless and desperate as he did.
Instead, after she’d gone, he stood immobile for far too long, seeking to master himself, to remember what was at stake.
Two days later, Finn was the last boy left, and before breakfast, he watched Catherine try to cook oatcakes on the girdle. Maeve had given her her own cook fire to practice, and the women left her alone, giggling whenever they glanced her way. Not Sheena, however. Catherine had not won her over, and her disdain was less and less hidden. Catherine didn’t know what she’d done to offend her.
When Catherine burned her second batch, Finn chuckled, and it was so difficult to act like his briefly amused expression wasn’t the best thing she’d seen from him in days. He seemed to be opening up under her attention, and she knew that if he learned to relax with people, he would eventually accept and appreciate having a new family.
Looking at the girdle, which seemed to mock her with its hot black surface, she gave a frustrated sigh. “I am a woman. I should know how to cook. I know how to sew.”
“I thought everybody knew how to cook,” he offered amiably.
