Page 41 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

The realization struck suddenly and with overwhelming intensity. Roy sat close enough that the damp heat of his body reached her through the cold room. She focused on the clasp, which resisted her fingers briefly, then she pushed the heavy tunic off his shoulders. The linen shirt underneath was stuck to his side, dark with blood. She grasped the linen and started lifting it. Roy lifted his arms to help her. The fabric caught on the wound. He inhaled sharply but made no other sound.

Donaldina worked slowly, easing the stained cloth away from his skin until she could pull it over his head. Then she forgot what she had intended to say.

She had known Roy bore scars. The pale mark upon his jaw announced as much before he spoke. She felt the hard strength of him when he caught her upon the cliff path and again in the training yard.

She had not imagined this. Scars crossed his chest in pale lines, some narrow as threads, others thick and uneven where wounds had closed badly. One curved over his shoulder. Another disappeared beneath his arm. A jagged mark lay near his heart, while older cuts traced his ribs and stomach like the faded record of battles no one had thought worth writing upon parchment.

Donaldina moved around him. His back was worse. A long scar crossed one shoulder blade. Small round marks lay near his spine, perhaps from arrows or fragments of metal. Near his lower ribs, the reopened wound cut through an older injury whose edges were puckered and hard.

“How did ye acquire this one?” she asked, touching the scar over his shoulder before she remembered she had not asked permission.

Roy’s muscles shifted beneath her fingertips.

“A pike.”

Her hand moved to the mark near his spine. “And this?”

“An arrow.”

“This?”

“A knife.”

He answered as though naming changes in the weather. Donaldina traced the edge of a pale scar along his side. His skin was warm beneath her fingers, the old wound smooth in one place and ridged in another. Roy turned his head slightly, watching her over his shoulder. She withdrew her hand.

“I must clean the cut.”

He faced forward again. “Aye.”

Donaldina dipped a cloth into the basin. The water turned pink when she pressed it carefully against the reopened wound. Roy’s body went rigid beneath her touch.

“Tell me if it hurts.”

“It doesnae.”

The stitches from the original injury had long since dissolved, leaving the flesh weak along one edge. The strain had split it open, though not deeply. Blood continued to rise slowly from the cut. She cleaned it with spirits. Roy’s hand closed around the edge of the stool.

Slowly, she threaded the needle. “I will need tae stitch it. It… will hurt.”

“Aye.”

Donaldina placed one hand against his side to steady the skin. His abdomen tightened beneath her palm. She felt the controlled rise of his breathing and the strong, steady beat of life beneath the warmth of his body.

Her own pulse became less dependable. She pushed the needle through the first edge of the wound. Roy did not move. Only his hand betrayed him, tightening once upon the stool before relaxing again.

Donaldina worked slowly. Each stitch drew the separated skin together. She felt his gaze upon her bent head, her hands, and the concentration she struggled to preserve. When she looked up, his eyes did not turn away.

Her fingers brushed another scar while she tied the next stitch. It lay close to the wound, a deep, pale crescent beneath his ribs. She allowed her thumb to rest against it. Roy’s breathing altered. Donaldina should have moved her hand. Instead, she traced the hardened edge with a tenderness that startled her.

“How many times?” she asked.

Roy’s voice came quietly. “How many times what?”

“How many times have ye nearly died?”

Silence filled the room as Donaldina pictured him in distant fields she had never visited, amid mud, smoke, and men shouting for mothers who could not hear. She imagined every scar fresh, every wound uncertain, with Roy standing up afterward because there was no one else to bear the load.

At last, he answered. “Enough.”