“I willna strike ye again if ye mention my family so callously.”
He tried to look serious but the flash of amusement in his eyes gave him away.
“I feel as if there are things ye are choosin’ no’ to say.”
Just as she chose not to answer him now. He was correct though; she left out what shewoulddo to him if he spoke so callously of her family again.
He opened the front door and stepped inside, then waited for her to do the same.
She did and snatched the hare from his hand on the way. “Supper will take an hour.”
“There is a small butcher block outside the back of the house and a kitchen as well.”
She left him there by the front door looking after her, or not. She didn’t turn back to find out.
While she was butchering the hare, a skill she’d had to learn in the kitchens of Talwarby Castle, her first prison after the death of her family, thoughts of Mr. Logan Cameron invaded her. Not current thoughts of him but memories of him that night, an eternity ago. He’d been bloody and swollen and cloaked in shadows. A pitiful sot, helpless to do anything but die. Och, but she should have let him—but that would not have saved her family. The moment he disappeared from his kin’s sight and her father’s men were found dead, his kin knew where to go to find their beloved cousin. And, beloved he certainly was.
They’d killed for him.
She wished all sorts of things while she prepared his food. One of them being, she wished his cousins were still there. So be it. She would rid her nagging thoughts of him when he was gone from the earth. Then she would ride to Tor Castle, where the rest of them lived.
An hour later, she set his steaming bowl of hare stew before him and then sat on the bench on the other side of the wooden table, facing him.
He looked at her like he might leap over the barrier that separated them and take a bite out of her, rather than his stew. He waited a moment when she realized he was waiting for her to eat first.
She obliged. She’d made a separate broth for herself and sipped a spoonful, knowing he would want her to eat first. Sheonly had to get him to trust her and eat what she’d prepared without her. Then she would add more.
“Despite this stew being as delicious as it smells,” he began, lowering his spoon from his lips—
—goodness, but they were full and round lips.
“I regret that ye had to learn to cook it.”
She blinked her admiring gaze from his lips to his eyes. “Hmm? Ye regret it?”
“Aye.”
Was his voice this thick earlier, this deep, resonating through her veins and making her insides tremble?
“Why?” she asked, not knowing what to say at such a statement coming from him. “Why…why…” She thought about it quickly. “Why would ye regret it if ye werena guilty?”
“Ye’re correct,” he said, spooning more stew into his mouth. “I never should have gone back to set eyes on ye again. But ye were…” He paused as if thinking about his next words.
Elspeth could hardly wait to hear them. “I was…?” she asked impatiently.
He stopped chewing and smiled slightly, looking at her. “Pure.”
What? She almost laughed. But she didn’t. Aye, she had once been pure and innocent of the unmerciful ways of the world. Remembering that time in her life made her eyes burn with tears she refused to shed in front of the guilty.
She watched him lift another heaping spoonful of poisoned stew to his mouth.
“I didna mean to cause ye such heartbreak.”
Why was he saying such things? Was she supposed to forgive him? She’d never considered it—just as she’d never considered him confessing such things. She blinked her misty eyes at him.
Bastard.
“Wait!” she erupted before the spoon entered his mouth.
