“Nay,” he said. “It wasnae respectful. Nae to ye, nae to me wife, whatever ye think ye are within it.” He held her eyes. “What was between Brigid and me ended a long while ago, long before yer name was spoken to me. It’s done. It’s been done. There was nay tenderness in it at the end, and there’s nae an ember of it left in me now. I will swear that to ye on whatever ye please. On me sister’s life. On me faither’s grave.”
Olivia’s eyes shone. “Ye daenae have to?—”
“And I will tell ye one more thing.” His voice had gone quiet and terrible. “Nay one in this castle—nae the healer, nae the maids, nae the whole mutterin’ pack of them—gets to make me wife feel small under me own roof. Nay one. I will take care of it.”
The words went through Olivia like cold water.
She was on her feet before she had decided to stand. “Nay.”
He stopped in the doorway and turned.
“Nay, Ragnall. Ye’ll nae.”
Her heart was beating too fast. She could see it again, and it would not go away, the tearing cloth and the flat, unchanged face and the wet, terrible ease of the blade going in, and the fiddles starting up again afterward as if nothing had happened.
“I ken whatI’ll take care of itmeans in this castle. I’ve seen what it means. I’ve stood in yer hall and watched it. But I’ll nae have another death on me conscience. I’ll nae haveherdeath on me conscience.”
“Olivia—”
“She insulted me. She was cruel to me, and she meant it, and she’ll do it again. That isallshe did.” Her voice had risen, and she could not seem to lower it. “A man laid his hands on me, and ye killed him for it in front of three hundred souls without flinching. So ye’ll tell me now plainly what it is ye intend to do, because I willnae lie in yer bed tonight wonderin’ if there’s a woman bleedin’ somewhere in this castle with me name on it?—”
“Olivia.”
He had crossed the room. She had not seen him move. He did not touch her.
“I’m sendin’ her away,” he said.
She froze. “What?”
“Brigid. She’ll be gone by the week’s end. There’s a laird at Kilmory who needs a healer. I’ll pay her a year’s wage, for she and her faither had served the clan well, and I’ll nae see her ruined for it.” His jaw was tight. “But she’ll nae stay under this roof. Nae after that.”
Olivia plopped down on the edge of the bed.
“Ye thought I meant to kill her,” Ragnall said.
“I…” She could not look at him. “Aye.”
“Aye.” He said it very quietly. “Well, I’ve given ye nay great cause to think otherwise, have I?”
The silence stretched out between them, and it was a dreadful one. Olivia found she could not leave it there.
“I saw ye kill a man at me weddin’ feast,” she said to the floor. “I have watched ye kill twice now, Ragnall, and both of them the same. There’s something that comes into yer face. Or rather, it doesnae come into it, and that’s the whole horror of it. Ye goquiet. Ye vanish somewhere behind yer eyes, and a man dies, and then ye come back.” She lifted her head. “I daenae ken how to live with a man I’ve seen do that. I daenae ken which of ye I’m talkin’ to.”
He did not defend himself. That was the thing that undid her. He stood there in the candlelight and took it and let the silence hold.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. “The one that’s standin’ here. That’s the honest answer. It’s nae a comfortable one, but I’ll nae dress it up for ye. I’m both. I’ve been both since I was two-and-twenty and me faither came home over a saddle. There’s a thing in me that goes cold and does what wants doin’, and I’ve never once been able to put it down, and I’ve stopped tryin’ to pretend I dinnae have it.” He looked at her steadily. “But I’ll tell ye what I’ve never done with it, Olivia. I’ve never turned it on a soul under me protection. Nae once. Nae ever. It doesnae come out for spite, and it doesnae come out for a sharp word, and it willnevercome out for ye or any woman in this castle. Brigid MacKee was cruel to me wife, and she’ll leave me castle with her purse full and her health whole. That is whatI’ll take care of itmeans.”
Some of the frost was going out of Olivia, and a new feeling was coming in to take its place, uncertain and raw and very close to hope. It undid him more thoroughly than all her fury had.
“Ye’d send away yer healer,” she said slowly, “for the likes of me? For an insult to a bride ye never wanted?”
Ragnall looked at her in the candlelight, at the place where the flame caught in her loose red hair, and thought of all the things he could not say to her—the great, dangerous, unsayable size of what he felt—and gave her the one piece of the truth he dared.
“Aye,” he said. “I would. And it’s nae for the likes of ye, lassie. It’s for ye.”
Then, before she could answer, before the look on her face could finish ruining him, he turned for the door.
“Sleep, now. I have a thing to see to in the mornin’.”
