Page 84 of Highland Spy

“The hurt of many for the accomplishment of one.” His movements were repetitive and unthinking, dip and wipe, dip and wipe, anything to keep from focusing on what he’d confessed to her. His words came in the same manner as his actions, no longer a confession, but simply telling her of Urquhart, of the joy he and his family had found there.

But he did not speak of Kenneth Gordon. Even that was still too painful.

One childhood story after another. Her face, neck, and chest were clean of any blood and the water had finally warmed.

Still Ariana stared out at nothing. It struck Connor how similar she looked to the glass doll Cora had gotten from their father once when he’d gone to France. Lovely and unnervingly still.

The action of cleaning the blood was not helping Connor the way he’d thought. It’d been a fix for a while, a meaningless distraction, but it wouldn’t change a thing.

Not a damn thing.

He gritted his teeth against the swell of angry frustration.

He’d lost too much in his life.

There was no damn way he was going to lose Ariana too.

He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her clear, unseeing eyes. The pupils were still mere pinpricks of black in a sea of deep blue-green.

“Ariana.” He searched her gaze like a drowning man seeking land. “Ariana, please. Please look at me. Look at me.”

His thumb brushed over her smooth cheek. “Ariana, it’s Connor. Connor Grant. I want ye, nay—I need ye to look at me.”

The narrowness of her pupils swelled slightly.

“Ariana.” He spoke her name as if her were issuing a command.

She flinched.

Good.

“Ariana, ye need to look at me,” he ordered. “Now.”

Her eyelids flickered shut and then, finally, those beautiful sea-colored eyes focused on him.

“Connor.” She’d spoken so softly he would not have heard were it not so quiet in the small room.

But he had, and it was the most beautiful sound ever to caress his ears. Relief flooded him in a frenzied, exciting rush and he understood then why lasses cried when they were happy.

Not that he was going to cry, of course.

He pulled in a loud, shaking breath. “Ariana, my God, lass, ye gave me a fright.”

She looked around the room and a little wrinkle appeared on her smooth brow. “How did we get back?”

Her body began to tremble slightly, and he remembered he’d cleaned her mainly with icy water. Of course she’d be cold.

He grabbed a dry plaid and threw it around her shoulders. She hugged it against her and the slight trembles turned into shakes.

He gripped her hard at the shoulders with his hands, as if he could stop her tremors himself.

“How…did we…get back?” she asked through clenched teeth.

Connor opened his mouth to speak and stopped. After she’d fallen outside the village, he’d helped her up and they’d gone about the task of removing the guard’s gear for their return trip and burying the body. Ariana had assisted him through everything, though she’d been entirely silent, her face expressionless.

Granted, Connor had expected her to cry or fret, but she’d done nothing more than what he asked and then watched him when she was not needed.

Perhaps it was best not to remind her of what had been done.