"Do you remember, Niall? How you loved it? And your father, playing sea monster, snarling and growling and trying to drag you off the bed into the imaginary waves?"
Caitlin looked at Niall, her heart aching. Had he once been that little boy? Frolicking, carefree? Brave enough to play at monster because he knew that his father would always be there to chase any real ones away?
What had that boy suffered when his world came apart? And what hell had that father endured, a warrior compassionate enough to create a sea for the woman he loved? Or were these all Aniera's imaginings? Stitching beauty and tenderness over reality to make the ugliness bearable?
Was that the reason Niall had taken her to the sea? Caitlin wondered. In honor of the mother he had all but forgotten? An innate understanding of a longing for wave and shore that reached from the time of his first flickering memories?
"Go along, then, both of you." Aniera waved them away, doubtless wishing to be alone with her memories. "Caitlin and I will speak later."
Caitlin glanced up at Niall as she followedhim away from the room where his mother now sat enthroned on the rickety stool, staring into ashes.
Every muscle in Niall's body was rigid, as if he were holding himself in check, battling the need to... what? Bolt away from this place and the devastation he saw every time he turned his head? What had he said to Fiona? That he would rather have hidden Caitlin in hell? She would well believe it. And yet he had come here, had faced all of this because of her.
With a furious swipe, he dashed away a spider's web large enough to trap a linnet and shoved open a wooden door. A tidal wave of dust curled into the air. Caitlin stifled a cough behind her hand, her eyes watering. She rubbed at her eyelids, trying to dash away the grit. When her vision cleared, she took her first tentative look at the chamber that was to be hers as long as they were at Castle Daire.
Light filtered into a surprisingly large room, setting it aglow with an aura that was otherworldly, as if they had stumbled into a castle lost through a fairy enchantment for a thousand years.
Caitlin gasped, gazing at walls covered with what must have once been glorious tapestries.White-capped waves almost seemed to dance, a gold-thread sun gleamed above, while sea creatures spun from a wondrous imagination frolicked in the glorious blue-green swells.
Exquisite shells, polished to perfection, seemed to breathe salt air into the room.
Caitlin touched the delicate web of a fisherman's net draped over the box of the bed. "It must have been so beautiful."
"Before the wood rotted and the bed was covered in grime?"
"I did not say that." Caitlin protested.
Niall grasped the mouse-nibbled robes upon the bed box, flung them to the floor. He stripped his cloak from his shoulders and tossed it upon the bed.
"You must have thought it. Perhaps my mother does not see that she lives in a dung heap, but I am certain you noticed."
His words might have wounded her if she had not felt his pain. "Niall, I am far too grateful for shelter to care about a little dust."
"A little dust?" He gave a strangled laugh. "The castle is practically crumbling atop their heads! But I did not know that they were suffering." He glared at her, as if daring her to believe him. "I never knew."
"Of course you did not."
Niall stared at her. "Is it so simple for you to believe a man whose very name screams of betrayal? Then you are a fool. I thought I was burdened by that name because of my father's shame. But look around you, Caitlin." He swept his hand in an arc about the wreckage of the chamber. "I betrayed my mother. I betrayed Fiona."
"You did not know!"
"I should have! What would it have cost me to make certain they had what food and shelter they needed? I would not even have had to come to Daire myself. There were other men I could have sent. But no. I was too angry. Too bitter. Too proud. Too consumed by the seven quests that would win back my honor. Tell me, Caitlin, where is that honor now?"
She wanted to comfort him, feared he would only dash her hand away. But she laid her fingertips upon the curve of his jaw. He jerked at her touch, as if she had stung him. "I am alive because of that honor," she said.
"Are you?" His mouth curled in mockery, self- loathing. "Have you not wondered for an instant if this did not save your life?" He grasped her chin, turned her face up to his.
Caitlin stared into his features, so hard, sodesperate, his gaze devouring her face. Her heart raced. Hunger and loathing—never had she known they could mingle in one man's eyes. "I do not understand."
"If you were not so beautiful, Caitlin, do you think I would have hesitated to kill you?"
Her breath caught. Heat shimmered along the surface of her skin, reddening her cheeks. He thought her beautiful, and yet something ugly lay beneath his words—the possibility that he would have completed his dark mission if she had been plain, like sweet Sister Mary with her mouse-colored hair and pockmarked skin.
She loathed the possibility that the things men valued most in women were mere accidents of birth, the cast of cheeks and lips, the color of eyes and hair, not traits earned by courage and strength and kindness.
Nay, it was too painful to think Niall would have let his sword fall upon any innocent woman. "I—I believe... I hope that you would not have hurt me, no matter how my face looked."
"Why? Because now that I have defied Conn's orders, you see me as some sort of hero? Have you learned nothing in the days since I took you from the abbey? To be wary. Not to trust anyone, especially me." He gave a snort of disgust. "Youstumble into life, blind as any babe, seeing only what you wish to see."
