Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
What am I doing? Why can I never say nay to him?
Theo’s fingers caressed her bare calf, causing goosebumps to rise over her skin.
How was he able to make her forget the outside world so easily? It was as if he eclipsed everything else. The sky could have been crashing to the ground in bits of stardust and moonbeams, and she wouldn’t have cared.
All she could concentrate on at the moment was Theo’s tender touch on her flesh as he carried her to their chambers.
The door flew open as he charged into the room. He tossed her onto the bed like a sack of potatoes before returning to the door and locking it.
Before Lavina could even get her bearings, he was on her. The mattress sank, and she scrambled to the headboard to evade his grip. Her heart pounded in her chest as the anticipation rose.
She wasn’t as apprehensive as the first time. Now, she knew what to expect. It was the longing to do it again that both thrilled and niggled at her.
Lavina tried to silence it, but the more she tried to suppress it, the louder it grew.
“Are ye all right?” Theo asked, pulling away.
Concern flickered in his gaze as he tried to figure out the cause of her hesitation. She bobbed her head as he droned on in the background.
Lavina wanted to push her thoughts back into the recesses of her mind and trap them in secret and silence. But the more she resisted, the harder it became for her to focus on him.
“I never thought I’d have the family I do now,” Theo whispered. “Thank ye.”
But all Lavina could hear was the word family. It echoed like a storm plummeting into a cavern, destined to fall for eternity.
She swallowed hard as she pressed her palm against Theo’s strong, chiseled chest. Beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, she could feel his heart drumming, wild and free.
“What’s wrong? And dinnae tell me nothing. I ken ye’re hidin’ something. Does me breath stink?”
“Nay,” Lavina said as he shifted to the edge of the bed.
The longing and desire in his eyes fizzled out like water to a furnace.
“Then what?” he asked.
“I just realized I’ve spent the better part of me life being wrong. I wonder what else I could be wrong about,” she muttered.
Lavina tilted her head and watched his shoulders slump. The mood in the room shifted.
“Why bother worryin’ about such things? ‘Tis nae like worryin’ about anything will add any time to yer life.”
“I think of ye, though,” Lavina said, pity rising in her chest. “For so long, I thought ye killed me family… and ye didnae. And I dinnae need proof. Yer actions have shown yer character. But I fear I’ll never ken who did it, or why.”
Her chest tightened. She had never expected to pour her heart out to Theo, especially when the night had started on a completely different note.
He stared at her with compassion and understanding before dropping his gaze.
The air crackled. Lavina felt it like a bolt of lightning striking a tree.
“Why do I get the impression that ye’re nae tellin’ me something?” she asked.
Theo slid off the bed and fastened the belt to his kilt, resigned to a sexless night. Guilt jabbed at her as he started to pace the room.
“Theo…”
“Why dig up the past? Are ye nae happy here with me?”
“I am. But what does that have to do with anythin’? What about findin’ out who killed them? Is that nae what’s important here? Justice?”
“Justice? Justice or vengeance? Say the culprit was someone in the village who sold me a necklace that happened to belong to yer maither. What would ye do? How would ye react? And who would ye blame? Would ye blame me for buyin’ the necklace unknowingly?
Or would it be the shopkeeper who sold it to me? ”
Lavina pursed her lips. As much as she hated to admit it, Theo was right. She felt like she could go in every direction. Everything she was so sure of before seemed like a rickety old bridge she was tempted to cross.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Theo wasn’t being forthcoming with her. He knew something. She just needed to figure out what.
Overwhelmed with frustration, she let her tears spill over. She hated feeling like a barrel tumbling down a river with nothing to catch it.
Suddenly, two strong arms wrapped around her. The warmth radiated from Theo and seeped into her. She closed her eyes and melted into his embrace.
“Hush now,” Theo whispered, cradling her head to his chest.
She wound her arms around him as he shifted slightly.
For a moment, Lavina couldn’t figure out what he was doing. After all, he had just coaxed her to him, and now he wanted her to move?
Warm, soft fur cocooned them as Theo drew it around her bare shoulders. He had sealed them in a private, safe world.
“I remember when I was a lad,” he began. “It was right after me parents were taken. I was holed up in the infirmary, wonderin’ why I was spared. It took me a while to sift through the anger and hatred… and then it hit me.”
Lavina reached up to touch the scars on his face. Theo’s hand caught hers and pulled it down.
“Why are ye tellin’ me this?” she asked, her heart pounding violently in her chest.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as every fiber in her being screamed that something was amiss.
“Because ye need to ken that I’ve been where ye are. And ye dinnae have to go down the road I did. Ye think closure will give ye peace, but it willnae. It will only feed the monster ye’ve created by nae forgivin’.”
“How can ye be so casual about death?” Lavina gasped, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. She needed air and distance.
“We are all destined for the grave, Lavina. It is how we live that’s most important.
And after years of growin’ stronger—me rage fuelin’ me every move, vengeance the force behind every decision—I finally came across them again.
A decade had passed. The men I had wanted to fight had grown old and feeble.
That’s when I realized that life is the punishment. ”
Lavina pulled away. The fragile little world Theo had created vanished in an instant. The fur dropped from her shoulders, and the firelight illuminated the stone walls of the chamber.
The dream was gone.
“How did ye do it? How did ye find the ones who killed yer family?” she asked, scrambling off the bed and folding her arms over her chest to secure her loose corset.
“Are ye seriously nae listenin’ to a word I’m tellin’ ye?” Theo barked as she hunted for a way out of the room.
The urge to get away from him was overwhelming. But where could she go? It wasn’t like she had a haven to flee to. Any place outside the keep was a danger zone.
And then it hit her.
Lavina turned to him, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she found the words. “Ye’ve spun a tale of forgiveness and mercy tonight. Why?”
Theo shrugged his shoulders. “The better question is, why wait five years to confess the need to hunt down yer family’s killer? If the need was so strong, why didnae ye go and find the killers before now?”
“Jonah swore to me he would look into it,” Lavina answered. “And for the first few months after their passin’, he was busy lookin’ into it and then he stopped.”
“Did he tell ye why?”
“Said that he couldnae chase smoke and that we’d have to just come to the undrstandin’ that our family was taken before their time. Micah wasnae very helpful either, and it was hard, but it was Maisie who helped me just as much as I helped her.”
“And when ye asked questions? Did he give ye any answers?”
Lavina chewed on her lower lip and shook her head. “He was understanding at first, but his patience snapped, and I barely got any chance to ask. Then, he had me thinkin’ of Maisie. He’d been eyein’ her for so long that I had to protect her.”
“Tell me what connections yer uncle has to pirates.”
“What? Pirates? How would I ken what devious things me uncle does or plans, let alone who he invites to social events?” Lavina scoffed, feeling heat flood through her.
“I say this because the brutes who tried to take Maisie hailed from Yorkshire. All four men bore the same mark on their wrists. So I’m goin’ to ask again—what is yer uncle’s connection to such people?”
“I dinnae ken… I dinnae ken about the marks…” Lavina trailed off.
She closed her eyes for a moment, but the memory consumed and chewed her to bits.
“Ye will do well nae to wake up the castle. I doubt me braither will let ye leave with yer life. Now, pledge yerself to me…” Micah’s voice was low and gravelly.
Lavina held her breath, terrified the floorboards would creak under her weight and give her away. Out of all the places Maisie could have left a book, she had to leave it in the room her uncle happened to be using.
“Me loyalty is to ye, I swear it,” the man said, before shoving the leather strap of his belt in his mouth.
She dared to peek around the corner, only to witness her uncle towering over a strange man with a hot iron in his hand.
The horror and pain on the man’s face had haunted her dreams for months. Deep down, she could have sworn she had dreamed the whole encounter up.
But as she clung to the memory, the prick of reality shot through her like an arrow to the heart.
“Oh Lord. I think I need some water,” she gasped, feeling incredibly lightheaded.
The room spun as she pieced together the past she had locked out.
“Lavina?”
She looked at Theo as the name formed on her tongue. “Micah… He killed them, did he nae?”
Theo was at her side with a glass of water in a flash. She stared at him, waiting for the answer she dreaded to hear. But his silence was all the confirmation she needed.
“Aye,” he finally answered.
The word rang in her ears like a ball falling down the stone steps. Only, she didn’t know when she’d stop falling.
“How did ye ken?” she asked, trying to figure out how she had missed so many clues.
Really, she wasn’t so na?ve, but the past proved otherwise.
“Stephen,” Theo said. “I had him look into a few things for me. About the would-be kidnappers. All of them had ties to yer uncle, and all of them had the mark.”
“I saw him do it,” Lavina murmured, the memory threatening to pull her under once again. “I watched Micah brand a man. I didnae ken what he was doin’ at the time, but I kenned it wasnae good.”
“Do ye remember how long it was until yer family was killed?”
Lavina dropped her shoulders as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Weeks.”
Oh, how many things made sense now that the veil had been lifted. Why Micah was so eager to marry off Maisie.
But why her uncle had kept her around was something Lavina couldn’t figure out. It was almost as if he had done it to torture and torment her.
“Me uncle must pay for what he’s done,” she said after some time.
The words sounded foreign, but they rang truer than anything she had said before.
“Aye,” Theo agreed as he moved to her. “And I’m workin’ on it.”
“Is that right? And what are ye plannin’ to do? Because let me tell ye, me uncle is a cunning man. He’ll see ye comin’ from a mile away. He’ll kill ye before ye can even draw yer sword.”
“I have faced many men like yer uncle me whole life. Ye let me worry about him. Yer job is to care for Amber and Maisie. Do ye understand?”
“Ye’re me husband now, and I worry for ye, too.”
“Since when?” Theo asked, running his fingers through her hair.
She closed her eyes and allowed his touch to soothe her. The mattress sank under his weight as he rested next to her on the bed.
How easy it was for her to succumb to his warm embrace. He was the stronghold she had been looking for her whole life. And now that she had him, she feared losing him.
She clung to him as dreadful images flashed through her mind.
“He’ll stop at nothing to get her back. And now he kens ye’re the one givin’ us sanctuary—we’re all in danger.”
“Yer uncle willnae touch ye, nae while ye’re under me protection,” Theo vowed.
“But ye have to ken that he’ll be comin’ sooner or later.”
“Aye. And when he does, we’ll be ready,” Theo declared, his grip tightening on her. “I swear it.”