She was asleep and unaware. He would not steal even a gentle touch from her while she could not choose it. So he remained still.
Desire had been simpler. He understood hunger in the blood and the discipline required to put his hands where he chose, to stop when he chose, to deny his body because it was the reasonable thing to do. Her sleeping against him, however, offered no battlefield he knew. She had given him her weight, her unguarded throat near his shoulder, her hand in his shirt.
Shetrustedhim to keep watch.
Connor looked toward the locked door. He listened until he caught the faint shuffle of his guard’s boots outside. No one had come too close. No one had lingered where they might hear. The tavern keeper had obeyed, the room was closed, and the fire burned low with Violet warm under the blanket.
Those were useful facts. He held onto them first. Then his gaze returned to the table.
The tea sat half-finished. She would drink more in the morning, whether she liked it or not. The herbs would return with them to the castle. He would send for the healer. If Violet refused, he would make the healer wait in the hall until her stubbornness faltered.
The thought of her anger in the morning should have pleased him like it usually did.But for some reason, it did not.
He looked at the faint shadows beneath her eyes. He thought of her leaving Moore Castle before dawn, dressed plainly, slipping past the guards like a thief in her own home.
She had gone alone because she knew what she needed and feared what others would do with that knowledge. She had hidden it from Moira and him. She had risked a public market rather than let anyone stand close enough to worry.
It was clearer than anything that she hid because she feared what her danger would do to anyone who loved her and because John was part of it. Connor saw that now with a clarity that irritated him for arriving late.
Violet held the baby as if love were work she had sworn herself to complete. She read to him, argued over his christening clothes, and smiled at every small sound he made. Her refusal to have children had never been cold indifference. She just feared a child loving her back.
Connor lowered his eyes to her sleeping hand in his shirt, and Lachlan’s letter came to mind, unwelcome.
Be gentler.
His brother had always known where old wounds lay, though he often mistook cruelty for insight. Violet had pressed the same bruise tonight.
Connor looked down at her and adjusted the blanket on her shoulder.
Gentleness had never saved his family. Yet Violet had looked at him with fever-red cheeks and accused him of becoming a wall. And now she slept with her hand in his shirt, as though that same wall had become shelter.
Near dawn, she stirred, and her lips brushed the edge of his shirt as she murmured, “Connor.”
Connor went rigid.
Her eyes stayed closed. She would never have called his name while awake. She would have swallowed the words, sharpened them into a joke, or denied them outright. In her sleep, she gave them to him without defense.
He gently drew her closer, careful not to wake her.
Only warmth, he told himself.Only keeping me wife safe until the morning.
But then, a bad lie had poor legs.
He had not moved from the bed. His back ached from his half-seated position, and his arm had gone stiff beneath her shoulders. The door remained locked, and outside it, his guard coughed once into a fist. Connor listened until the man shifted again, then looked back at Violet.
He should have slept while he could. Instead, he measured the hours until dawn and thought through the road home.
They would leave before the village woke fully. Violet would eat first, even if he had to stand over her with the bread in hand. She would ride slowly, wrapped against the morning chill, and he would keep one man ahead on the road and one behind. If she swayed once in the saddle, he would put her before him on his horse and endure whatever sharp little protest she found strength for.
The corner of his mouth curved at that thought.
Then his gaze fell on the table, and the almost-smile vanished.
She had known exactly what to buy, and she had known how to ask for it. This had happened before. Violet had refused that answer with her mouth, then given it to him with every motion since.
Aiden’s warning returned to him with more weight now.
“Violet smiles when she ought to ask for help.”
