The whisky’s gone right to his head. He wasnae this soft with me before.
“Effie braided yer hair while ye were recoverin',” he said, stroking her now-flowing auburn hair. “The lassie already loves ye, Beatrice.”
“As I love her.”
Leo’s lips turned down. He drank some more and let out a wistful sigh. “I daenae ken how to explain all of this to ye, but marriage…” He cupped both hands around the glass. “I’ve never seen a good thing come of it. All I’ve ever seen is how it rots the people who agreed to it. I daenae… want Effie to live the way I did.”
Beatrice placed a hand on his arm and shifted her weight so she was closer to him. Where their naked bodies touched, a spark of heat began to grow.
“I have seen love,” she promised him, her voice strong in the darkness flecked with fiery crimson. “I have seen it. I believe in it.”
Leo shook his head. “Well, I havenae. I’ve seen marriage poison lives. I’ve seen it destabilize the clan.” He closed his eyes briefly and breathed in slowly. “I cannae gamble me daughter’s future on something like that.”
He sees me as a risk. He sees all of this as a way for Effie to get hurt.
“I daenae want to do anythin' to hurt Effie or ye,” Beatrice said. “I care for her, I truly do. Our arrangement…” She reached up and turned his face so he was looking right at her. His eyes glistened, wet and cumbersome with pain. “I think comin' to ye was a mistake.”
She felt the tension in his jaw as he swallowed, but there was no other reaction. He put the glass down, then pulled back the covers and waited for her to climb under them. He joined her, their bodies fitting together on the narrow bed.
“Before the handfastin' ceremony,” he spoke into her ear, “I will help ye escape.”
She turned to face him, seeing him in the glow of the fire as the man she had always known existed for her.
Nay, this is just an arrangement. I must remember that. He is a man I have agreed to be with, nae one I am fated to be with.
“Help me escape?”
“Ye deserve to find what ye’re lookin' for, Beatrice. Ye can find that but nae with me. There’s none of that to be found here. I will let ye go free.”
Heart, lungs, stomach—everything inside her shrank into a curdled mass. Leo pulled her closer, their faces only inches from each other.
I have found it, though.I have found all of that in ye.
“Are ye sure, Leo?” she asked, feeling the warmth of his skin and breathing in the scent of him that she always found herself hungry for.
“Aye. Yer chance is out there. I willnae keep ye from it.”
A protest hung on the tip of her tongue, but she let it dissolve.
They fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, the fire crackling steadily beside them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The surprising warmth of the morning put Leo in a good mood as he returned to the inn, the horses loping steadily alongside him.
It was bright out, brighter than he had expected it to be in the earlier hours before the haze and mist left over from the previous night burned off.
I havenae felt like this in… well, in some time. If ever.
He tried to remember the last time he had felt so light, like he was gliding more than walking. So often, there was a heavy weight on his shoulders, driving him deeper into his own footprints. Bright moments were not particularly common for men like him.
Opening the door to the inn, he gave the innkeeper his friendliest grunt and started towards the room where he and Beatrice had spent the night, heated by the diminishing fire andeach other’s warmth. He hadn’t noticed the innkeeper’s tight expression and the way his eyes followed him as he made his way to the room.
What will I say to her?
Leo paused outside the door for a brief moment.
How do I address her, now that we’ve become so familiar with each other?
