Page 45
“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.
