“Molly?” he said. “May I come in?”
“What? Oh, yes, of course.” She stepped back and he strode into the room.
“They’ve given ye one of the best guest rooms, I see,” he said. “Good. It’s to yer liking?”
“What? Yes, it’s fine.” She waved a hand. What did she care what her bloody room was like?
Conall nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He seemed a little edgy. He picked at a thread on his tunic and shifted his feet awkwardly. “And ye?” he said. “Ye are well?”
“I’m fine,” she said automatically although this wasn’t true. She wasn’t fine. She was confused and strung out like a piece of wire and what she wanted more than anything right now was for Conall to put his arms around her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
But he didn’t. Instead, he stood on the other side of the room, creating a gap between them. Silence fell, punctuated only by the sounds from deeper within the keep.
“So,” Molly said at last. “You’re the son of an earl.”
Conall winced. “Aye.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She’d suspected from the start that he was more than the simple warrior and sailor he made out, but this? Wasn’t an earl only a few steps down from royalty?
“Because it didnae matter. I’m still the same man.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am!” Anger flashed in his eyes. “Ye see! This is exactly why I didnae tell ye, why I keep my past a secret as much as I’m able. Because as soon as anyone finds out who my father is, they see me differently! Ye saw how my father was with me. Not exactly the warm homecoming, was it? I am not the son of an earl. Iusedto be the son of an earl but that was a long time ago. I left and never planned on coming back here.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I must! Because I suspect—”
He cut off abruptly and spun to face the window. From the way his shoulders hunched, Molly could see how tense he was. If coming here was hard for her, how hard must it be for him? She’d seen his welcome and it had been anything but warm.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that...that...so much has happened, I can’t seem to keep it all straight.”
He turned to face her. “I know and I’m sorry too. I should have told ye the truth, prepared ye for what to expect. But it’s hard to talk about. And I...I didnae want ye to see me differently.”
Something in his voice snagged at her insides. There was an undercurrent of vulnerability she had not expected to hear. Conall was formidable, there was no doubt about that. He was tall, strong, a dangerous fighter and more than capable of taking care of himself. Yet as he looked at her, Molly saw something else in him too, a desperate loneliness that nearly broke her heart.
“I don’t,” she said. “I don’t see you any differently. I don’t care if you’re an earl, a duke, or the king of bloody Scotland! You’re still the man who saved my life. You’re still the man who—”
Sends my heart thundering whenever I’m near you,was what she wanted to say.
She sucked a breath through her nostrils. “Can we back up a little? I need to know what’s going on, Conall. Whyarewe here? And why did your da treat you like that? What happened to make you leave?”
Conall’s expression didn’t change but a little vein throbbing in his temple betrayed his tension. “Now that,” he breathed. “Is a long story.”
Molly looked around, then gave an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I’m not going anywhere.”
He sighed and rubbed his chin. “My father and I have always had a...difficult relationship,” he said at last. “And for the last few years we havenae had a relationship at all. Almost seven years ago, he banished me, and I havenae set foot on his lands until today.”
“Banished you?” Molly said incredulously. “Banished his own son? Why?”
“Because I wouldnae do what he wanted,” he said with a shrug. “Because instead of following his wishes, I joined the Order of the Osprey.”
He paused, looking around. His wolf-gray eyes flicked over the opulent surroundings and then came back to rest on Molly’s face. “But that was just the culmination of our feud. Our difficulties started way before that. My father is not a kind man, Molly. He is cold and ruthless and ill-suited to being a father or a husband. He was always distant, harsh in his punishments, and absolute in his expectations. Perhaps I could have forgiven him all that—he is an earl after all and has many responsibilities—but I could never forgive what he did to my mother.”
Molly remembered Conall asking his da where his stepmother was. That meant his real mother wasn’t here. Did that mean...? She was afraid to ask, to stir up painful memories.
“Did she...die?” she asked.
