Page 30 of Highland Spy

Connor placed a hand on her shoulder, but Ariana shifted away.

“You asked me to be strong for her.” The look in Ariana’s eyes went hard. “But nothing is working.”

Guilt cut into him. He’d said that to encourage her, not to tear her down.

“Percy is the best healer I’ve ever known,” he said. “And ye have been strong, extraordinarily so. That’s all ye can do, lass.”

Her jaw clenched and she swallowed hard. “I’ve seen people die and never has it struck so deep. My parents and my brother, they all died. But I didn’t—”

She stopped speaking and turned sharply to look into the fire smoldering in the hearth. Firelight played over her features, the smoothness of her skin, and the rounded arc of her cheekbones.

“But ye dinna what?” he asked.

When she did not answer, he touched the cheek facing away from him. She was warm beneath his fingertips, her skin silky.

He gently turned her face toward him, her eyes large and lit with something he realized he wanted desperately to know.

He dropped his hand from her face, but his fingers tingled with the memory of the sensation. “But ye dinna what?”

She lifted her chin with her usual determined strength. “When my parents and brother died, I didn’t know them well enough to feel.” Her free hand clenched into a fist. “This is different, Connor. I know Liv. I care for her. I worry about her every day.”

Her compassion was palpable and it pulled at something deep inside him. “Percy would let ye help more if ye like. Yer lessons can be shortened.”

He’d meant to reassure her, but Ariana’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “It’s not that. I’ve tried to help more, but end up underfoot. It’s just—every day I grow stronger and every day Liv grows weaker. I wish I could do something more than sit by and watch her waste away. I feel so helpless.”

Her eyes glowed with emotion and her smooth brow puckered. It made him want do whatever it took, say whatever she needed to hear, to soothe her.

“Being helpless is difficult,” he admitted.

“I can’t imagine you ever being helpless.”

“My sister was ill once,” he said. “No’ like Liv, but verra sick.” He drank from his cup and let the burn of liquor warm his throat and insides. “With the plague.”

“Did she…?”

“Survive? Aye, but she was verra bad before she got better. Like ye, I could only stand by and watch. I couldna fight the sickness for her, I couldna make her better, and though I wanted it more than anything, I couldna take her place.”

The unwanted memory of Cora rose in his mind. Her small body had been so still, her lips and cheeks without color as death cradled her ever closer. Helplessness had raged within him, like a clawing beast writhing to be free from a cage with no doors.

“I’m glad you still have her,” Ariana said.

The thought of Cora, her long mane of wild brown waves and her laughing brown eyes, touched a smile to his lips. “I’m glad to still have her too. My ma died giving birth to her and it was as though all the kindness of my ma passed into Cora.”

He didn’t know why he’d shared that about his mother, but the quiet look on Ariana’s face compelled him to continue. “I was a lad of ten and though I knew I should be a man about it, my ma’s death devastated me. I wanted to hate Cora for having taken her from me. But then I saw Cora. She was a bitty wee thing and she smiled at me, all sweetness and love, and I knew then I’d no’ ever hate the lass.”

Aye, Connor was glad his sister was still alive, and he’d done a poor job of showing it. Murdoch was right. He needed to see her again.

Ariana watched him with a quiet smile on her face and the realization of just how much of himself he’d shared struck him as sure and quick as lightning.

“Ach, ye need to get yer sleep,” he said with a gruffness he hadn’t intended. “It’ll be another hard day tomorrow.”

“I’d be disappointed otherwise.” Ariana handed her cup to him and had started to walk away when she stopped and turned back toward him. The firelight played across her beautiful features, on the delicate curl of her dark hair where it fell around her shoulders.

On the bruised skin visible just under her dress on her left shoulder.

“Thank you, Connor. Good night.”

He nodded absentmindedly, unable to pull his gaze from her discolored flesh.