Page 43 of Deception of a Highlander

The compliment would normally roll off his shoulders. Instead, it seeped into his thoughts and widened his grin. Women had admired his physique before, but it sounded different coming from Mariel. Like warm, sensual strokes of flattery—so much like the movement of her hands.

“I ought to be scolding you rather than pampering you right now.” A playful slap landed on his shoulder.

Scolding?

“Mmm?” he mumbled. “Why do ye say that?”

“Innes.” She paused from her task and rasped in a shrill voice, “Come. Put. Done.”

Kieran gave a lazy laugh at her impression of the old woman. “I dinna think anyone has ever dared mock Innes before.”

Mariel’s hands slid across his back. “I don’t think I’d be brave enough to do it in front of her.”

He imagined Mariel bent over one of those foul-smelling pots with Innes snapping orders at her, and remorse niggled his conscience. Perhaps having Mariel dye wool with the hard old woman had been cruel.

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and a smile curled his lips once more. “Let me see yer hands.”

She gave him another little slap. “You cur. You have to earn it.”

His mind flashed with the various ways he could do just that. “Did ye have something in mind?”

She was quiet for a moment, hesitant almost. “Tell me what was so important that it drew you from my company this evening.”

Her response was not what he had expected.

The tension she worked so hard to ease from his shoulders crept up once more as he remembered his visit with Blair and Dougal. Telling Mariel where he had been would draw her deeper into the clan, make her one of them. It would make her belong when she was so far from a home that did not want her.

But it was not his secret to tell. Could she be trusted?

Guilt tugged at his chest. That morning, he had ordered his clan to trust Mariel. He had claimed he trusted her. Yet when faced with the opportunity, he realized the disheartening truth. He did not.

Not when his trust had been so brutally betrayed in the past, and not when that misguided trust had cost him so dearly.

Mariel’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts. “I can feel the tightness in your body. Forgive me for asking.”

He heaved a sigh of frustration. Mariel was not the spy from his past. She was genuine and kind. She was worthy of his trust.

He either needed to force her to leave Skye, or he needed to allow himself to let her in. Not just for her but as proof to himself that he had not wholly lied to his clan.

“Have ye ever seen someone so ill-treated that it puts violent thoughts into yer head?”

Her hands stilled on his back. Was she horrified by the question?

“I have.” The words were spoken softly.

She understood. Of course, she did.

Trust her.

“And when ye see the product of that abuse, it tears at yer soul and leaves ye feeling…empty.” Would she know what he spoke of? A glimmer of trepidation rippled through him. Would she think him weak for it?

“Yes,” she whispered.

Vain relief coupled with the rage tightening in his gut. “And for all the power and strength ye possess, ye canna do a damn thing to help them?”

“All you can do is bide your time until salvation becomes possible…then take your chance before it’s gone…” Her voice caught on the last word and pulled his attention away from his own darkness.

He turned in his seat and saw the pain burning in her wounded gaze.