“Therapy?”
He looked at her. “Healing of the soul,” he said softly. “That’s what my mom calls it.”
Marjorie nodded and took a small sip of her uisge. “Aye. ‘Tis necessary. I wouldna have done it without my brother Owen and Isbeil. They were the two who helped my soul to heal. And Colin, of course.”
“How was it for you to be pregnant with your attacker’s child? That couldn’t have been easy.”
Marjorie pursed her lips, and they reddened against her alabaster skin. “Aye.” She lowered her head, and her cheeks blushed. “I hated that bairn every day. The thoughts I had of it in my womb— I’m ashamed of them. Thoughts of ill will. Wishing it the worst… Wishing it the unspeakable.”
Konnor’s skin chilled. He couldn’t imagine Marjorie wishing ill on anyone, let alone her own son.
“But once that wee bairn was in my arms, and I looked into his eyes for the first time, all that disappeared like a bad dream. I saw that there was nothing in him but goodness. I saw that he was a gift of our Lord Jesu Christ. And that he had nothing in common with his evil father, and he never would, as long as I had a say in it. I had to pick myself up and start to live. I had a reason to do so, thanks to my son.”
The sweetest smile spread across her lips.
“He’s the reason I’m a warrior and nae a ghost hiding from the world in my tower.”
Konnor’s chest tightened in a sweet ache. What would it be like to love a child like this? He’d never know. Was he even capable of love like that?
“He’s a great kid,” Konnor said.
Marjorie’s eyes widened. “Kid? A goat’s bairn?”
Konnor chuckled. “We call children kids where I come from.”
Marjorie laughed softly and wiped the remnant of a tear. “Aye, well, he is a wonderful goat’s bairn.”
Konnor sighed with a big smile.
“But, Konnor, if ye were afraid to tell me that ye and yer mother were beaten and abused by yer stepfather, ye didna need to worry.”
He clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. “That’s not the darkness I was talking about.”
The lightness of the moment would make what he was about to say easier. He met her eyes. Konnor gulped the last of the moonshine. The anguish in his chest numbed a little. She looked at him with compassion, with care. She stood so close he could smell her scent, the one he’d recognize in a crowd. She cared about him. She wanted to know his darkness.
Oh damn.
Was this the last time she would want to stand near him? Would want to talk to him? But there was no way back. He had to tell her the truth. His breath caught, and his gut tightened like he was about to jump into an abyss.
Marjorie, don’t hate me.
“I killed him, Marjorie.”
Marjorie’s face went blank. He’d expected her to gasp in shock or cry or widen her eyes in horror.
No, she was completely frozen. Still like that loch. Silence hung between them. Only crickets chirped, and the leaves rustled gently in the trees. The slight buzz of voices came from down in the great hall.
Fear went through him in cold quivers. There. He’d blown it. It shouldn’t matter. There’d never been a chance at a life together for them anyway. But damn it, he felt something for this bewitching woman. Damn it to hell.
“Do you hate me?” Konnor said.
“Hate ye?” Her voice came out with a rasp. “Nae. Of course nae. Craig killed Alasdair. If he didna, and if I’d had strength to, I’d have wanted to do it myself.”
He sighed. Relief flooded his veins. But maybe it was only because she didn’t realize what it meant.
“I endured his beatings for ten years. One evening, when I was eighteen, I realized I didn’t have to anymore. I could fight back. Something snapped in me. A wild anger that I’d harbored for so long took over. I saw red. All I could see was red. I shoved him against the wall and beat him and beat him until my hands were slippery from his blood.”
Marjorie’s face was as still as a stone mask.
“I looked at my bloody hands, at his face beaten to a pulp, and I hated myself.” He closed his eyes, willing to swallow the next words, regretting that he’d said this much out loud. “I became him.”
Silence fell between them, thick and palpable, like an invisible wall. Planets could’ve been born and died in the seconds that passed by.
And then she broke it with one word. “Never.”
“He was not the first man I’d hit. I was violent after my mom married him, even as a kid Colin’s age. If I hadn’t gotten into soccer—it’s a team sport—I would’ve kept on getting into fights and stealing stuff. Then I enrolled into the Marines. I’d always wanted to because my dad was a Marine.”
He swallowed a painful knot. “As a Marine, I didn’t hesitate to kill people, Marjorie.”
“Neither did my grandfather, my father, my uncle, and my brothers.” She swallowed. “Neither will I when the MacDougalls come. ‘Tis the way of a warrior.”
“But—”
“Have ye ever raised yer hand to a woman or a child?”
“No.”
“Then ye dinna have a thing in common with him.”
Konnor exhaled shakily. Her words seeped through him like a cool balm on a burn wound.
“Disgusted by my actions and afraid I’d finish him, I left the house,” Konnor said, “He was alive when I left. I later found out that he made it to his car and tried to drive—probably to a hospital. But on his way there, another car hit him, and he died.” His gut churned. “Had I not beaten him, or had I taken him to the hospital, he might be alive today.”
The words and the guilt burned his gut like acid.
“I believe ‘tis destiny that brought us together,” she said. “We share this darkness, this experience with violence. Mayhap because of your care for an abused woman, ye’re the first man I’ve felt safe with besides my brothers.”
She lay her hand on his chest, and Konnor’s heart thumped against it. Did she think of him as a brother? His shoulders dropped with disappointment. He wanted her to think of him as a man. But she felt safe with him. That mattered more.
“Ye make me want to have a normal life.” She stepped closer so that their hips and stomachs touched. Konnor sank into the depths of her slanted eyes. In the twilight, they were the color of a forest after the rain, and he lost his breath, mesmerized by their magic and mystery.
“Ye make me want to love someone,” she whispered. “To kiss someone.”
Konnor’s blood buzzed. “Do you want to kiss me?”
She exhaled. “Aye. Verra much.”
Konnor lifted his hand and cupped her warm, smooth jaw. “I’ve wanted to do this from the first moment I saw you.”
Her eyes sparkled with excitement, anticipation, and desire.
Slowly, to give her the chance to jump back if she changed her mind, he leaned towards her without breaking eye contact. Then gently, he covered her lips with his.
They met him with such softness he thought he would lose his mind. She smelled like a field of wild flowers, of wind and of freedom. He touched her lips softly, then again and again. The silk of her warm mouth and her scent made his head spin and his blood boil.