Page 32 of How to Heal a Highland Heart
“Patience, what is it?”
Ye’re worthless,said Silas’s voice.
Was that true? Blood pumped hard through her veins and roared in her ears, and her palms and scalp became hot and tingly.
Ye’re a cold fish. Ye dunnae have any passion in ye. ’Tis a chore to bed ye.
“Stop it!” she said and pressed her hands to her ears, but Silas’s voice grew louder.
Yer arms are too thin. Yer hips too narrow. Yer breasts too small.
“Leave me be!”
“Patience!”
She jerked her eyes open, shocked they had been closed.
Worry etched the lines of Brodee’s face. “Is it Silas?” he asked, his voice low.
She didn’t even realize she was crying until warm tears slid down her cheeks. She wanted to trust him, to tell him of her past, but she just couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe never. Perhaps she was a fool for even considering trusting him. “Aye,” she croaked, finally answering him.
His eyes hardened before her, and the change made a physical ache blossom in her chest. It was Silas. And Ivan. And her father. And her. She had pretended to be broken, but perhaps it was the truth. “I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Come,” he replied and released his hold on her shoulders to catch her fingers. He turned and walked her across the hall to her bedchamber, and a desperate laugh escaped her. Did he think a simple change of bedchamber could fix her? God, she wished it could. She wished she would feel something when he touched her. She wished he was tender and kind, and would grow to love her as she had once dreamed of being loved, back when her mother would tell her bedtime stories so very long ago.
She clamped her jaw tight, not daring to say any of this aloud. He turned to her, cupped her face in his large palms, and when he leaned in, her breath escaped on a startled hiss. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then her nose, and ever so briefly her lips, so quick and light was the touch that later she would wonder if she’d imagined it.
“Rest easy, Patience. I’ll be across the hall if ye need to battle Silas.”
She was too surprised by his words to do more than nod. He leaned past her, opened her door, and gave her a gentle push into her bedchamber. Darkness consumed her. The fire had not been lit. She made her way to her bed, sat, and fell backward to stare up at the ceiling and the way the moonlight made odd shapes there.
Alone. She was alone on her wedding night. She’d set out to ensure Brodee wanted nothing to do with her, and it seemed she’d been successful. Why did she not feel happier? Why did she feel as if she might have made a mistake.
Ye’re worthless, Silas whispered in her ear.
“Ye’re dead,” she whispered back.
The knock at the door did not wake Brodee. It merely interrupted the continuous questions running through his mind about his wife. As he rose from the bed, the questions resumed again. Why did some of the men not show her respect? Why did Patience not seem to know her own worth? Why was she so frightened of him? Was it his reputation or something else? Had she been beaten by Sutherland or Kincaide or possibly both men?
He opened the door to find William standing there.
“I’m sorry to interrupt yer wedding night—”
“Ye’ve nae interrupted anything.”
William peered around Brodee into the empty bedchamber. “Where’s yer wife?”
Brodee pointed to Patience’s bedchamber door across the hall.
“I’d nae have taken ye for a man who is so verra quick with the bedding,” William said.
“And ye should nae,” Brodee replied, trying to make light of a situation that was anything but amusing.
William nodded. “I see. Is this about barriers, then?”
“What barriers?”
“The ones ye have built around ye?”
