Page 30 of Go, Rogue

Even if it’s partially true. Because it’s partially true.

She presses her fingernails into her palms to stop the rush of hot, wet tears she can feel trying to breach her eyelids.

“I suppose that is true,” she says quietly, failing to stop those tears after all. “In part. I had my reasons, but—” she shakes her head and doesn’t finish that sentence.

It doesn’t matter what comes after that “but” or what her reasons might have been for any of her actions. What she says instead is, “I didn’t know that’s how you feel about me. I knew you were angry but not that you… that you loathe me.”

But it seems so obvious now that she’s said it out loud. He never wanted her the way she wanted him. The man despises her. He possibly hates her. And he’s only ever suffered her company for payment.

Good heavens, what a fool she’s been. Coming here, forcing herself aboard his ship and into his company.

She stands, wanting to escape, but she has nowhere to go. They’re stuck here together, and he hates her. A humiliating turn of events and one that’s all her fault.

“I’ll just—” She turns and starts for the door.

“Wait,” he says, and when she doesn’t, he stands and strides to her. “Wait, lass.”

“No. I won’t saddle you with my company any longer.”

But whatever dignity she’s been trying to muster is ruined by the tears that are still falling down her face.

“Please,” he says again, more quietly, and holds his hand out to her. “I wasn’t fair to you.”

“Weren’t you?”

“Sit, Menace. And let me tell you a story. I owe you one.”

She shakes her head no, but she doesn’t move, either, so he begins to talk.

“When I first knew who you were,” he says, after they both re-seat themselves at the small table, “is when that bloke had a knife to your throat.”

“That isn’t when we met,” she interrupts, quietly.

“I know it.”

He takes a sip of wine and steals a glance at her. The tears have stopped, thank Elphame. He’d rather punch himself in the face than look at tears he’s caused streaming down her cheeks again.

He clears his throat and continues. “We met that day in the park when I gave Violet my card and invited her to start a medical clinic at my sister’s tavern. But that isn’t when I knew you. I knew you the night you asked me to teach you to fight.”

He glances at her, but she sits still at the table, stone-faced, so he keeps talking. “It was the night of the storm, and you, it seems, had just left the solicitor’s office.”

She nods. “Lightning frightened the horses.”

“Aye. It was so hot that day, the storm hanging heavy over town. It felt more like Jamaica than London.”

“Have you been to Jamaica?” she asks. “Is that why you have all the books?”

He squelches his smile. There’s the inquisitive woman he knows. He’d been worried she wouldn’t show that part of herself to him again after what he’d said to her.

But she’s always been brave. Braver than him, because he can’t bring himself to tell her about Jamaica. He will have to one day, he’s beginning to realize.

But not today.

Not yet.

“I have been, but not for long enough. Those books are for a different reason. They’re to help me… understand. But that’s a different story. In this story,” he goes on, “it’s hot. And bloody humid. Nowhere, my sister’s tavern, is a crush. It’s one of the few places in London where a Scot can still be a Scot, so everyone gathers there. To wear their forbidden tartans and hear a bit of piping. Drink the finest whisky available and speak in Gaelic to whomever is drunk enough to listen.

“I understand it,” he says, “the urge to have even one place like that where a man can speak his tongue and wear his plaid. It means everything.”