Chapter 32
Ailis put her head down and kept walking across the straw-strewn cobbles of the courtyard, her hand flying to her chest to try and rub away the feelings that held her heart in a vise: guilt, longing, regret, love, all mingling together in a suffocating grip.
“One of me strides is two of yers, lass,” Killian added, walking alongside her. “Ye cannae run from me.”
He made an excellent point, but Ailis could ignore him. Didn’t he understand why she couldn’t be near him?
Of course, she hadn’t yet explained to him why she harbored so much guilt in her heart, but surely he could see that she had her reasons for dismissing him?
“Daenae make me throw ye over me shoulder, Ailis,” he warned gently as they reached the gates.
A few guards eyed her with uncertainty, as if they weren’t sure whether to let her pass or not. News had already spread that Shawn was dead and Murdock had become the Laird of Clan Ainsley, but no one had ever been quite sure what to do with her.
It seemed that had not changed.
I was always the odd one out. Now, I ken why.
“Me braither has given his permission for me to come and go as I please,” she said curtly to the guards. “He’s in the entrance hall. Ye can ask him yerselves if ye daenae believe me.”
The men turned back to whatever they had been doing, offering no further look of suspicion or word of protest as she strode on into the outside world. A strange feeling, for she had never been permitted to leave the grounds before, not without an escort that hardly made it seem worth the effort.
It was the freedom she had always dreamed of, yet she couldn’t enjoy a second of it.
Not particularly good with directions, unless she was deep in the dungeons, Ailis veered toward what she hoped was the east. That was where she would find the sea, and no unexpected attendant would prevent her.
However, she found she couldn’t continue to ignore him. “Why did ye nae leave with yer braither and Paisley? I told ye to leave.”
She hoped she sounded angry, her heart secretly delighted that Killian had stayed behind for her. Imagining him in that carriage, getting further and further away from her, had been a crippling torture.
“I wasnae needed or welcome,” Killian replied. “Me braither and Paisley never thought they’d see each other again. Do ye really think I’d want to be in that carriage with them? Besides, it’s nae a long journey, and she’s a healer. She can tend to him better than I can.”
It was another excellent point. If Ailis had been separated from Killian for weeks, uncertain if they would ever be reunited, she wouldn’t have wanted her brother intruding on such a happy occasion either.
“Ye could’ve ridden ahead or alongside,” she countered, her legs already beginning to tire on the mossy terrain, her fatigue and ordeal swiftly catching up to her.
“It wasnae necessary,” Killian insisted, strolling beside her with annoying ease.
Ailis shot him a confused look. “But he was the reason for everythin’ ye’ve been doin’. How could ye let him return without ye? Ye should be with him, nae me.”
“On that, we’ll have to agree to disagree,” he said, his wintry blue eyes fixed on the horizon. “Aye, Fraser was the reason for everythin’ I’d done, and I’m glad beyond belief that he’s alive and that he’ll survive this, but it’s nae him I need to be with. He agrees with me.”
Ailis stopped walking and turned to face him. “He would leave ye with people who, up until earlier this mornin’, were yer sworn enemies? People who put him in a cell and cut off one of his fingers? He agrees that ye should stay in such a place with such people? I daenae believe that for a second.”
“It’s the truth,” Killian replied, his gaze alight with something like hope. “He has his happiness back, and he wants me to be happy in turn. He was the reason, but he’s nae anymore. That reason is ye now, Ailis. Ye are me reason for livin’, and I cannae do that if ye’re nae at me side.”
He took a step closer to her, his hand coming up as if he meant to cradle her cheek, but he paused less than half an inch from her face.
A tease, a taunt, a temptation, or his way of asking for permission? She wasn’t certain. She wasn’t certain of anything anymore.
“Ye daenae understand,” she murmured, searching his face. “If ye did, ye wouldnae be at me side at all. Ye’d be ridin’ as fast as possible away from me.”
Killian shook his head. “I heard enough of what ye told yer braither, Ailis. I agree with him; none of what has happened is yer fault, I daenae wish ye’d drowned that day either, and I’m grateful for the day ye were born.
” He touched his hand to her cheek. “This war didnae start because of ye. It started because yer faither was a devil of a man. However, ye did end this war. What ye said to yer braither made him reconsider everythin’.
He drafted a peace treaty because of ye, so if ye want to focus on somethin’, let it be that. ”
“But… with this peace treaty, ye can be free,” she pointed out quietly, confused as to why he was still standing with her if he knew everything. “The reason we got married doesnae exist anymore, and I daenae want ye to feel obliged to—”
“Will ye cease that?” he interrupted, a touch more sharply than earlier, his other hand coming up to hold her face. “I’m nae obliged to do anythin’. And aye, the reason we got married still exists. I love ye, lass.”
She blinked up at him, wondering if she had misheard.
“I loved ye, or kent I would love ye, from the moment ye came through the door of yer bedchamber and found me there,” he continued in earnest. “I kent ye would be mine the very second I threw ye over me shoulder and stole ye from that place.”
She relished the rough warmth of his palm against her skin and the light brush of his thumb across her cheeks—she couldn’t help it. All she wanted was to step into his embrace and hide there for a while, losing herself in him. But her guilt wouldn’t allow it.
“It willnae work,” she told him thickly.
“What will happen if yer people object? What if they still cannae accept me, and blame me for everythin’ they’ve lost?
I mean, what if we argue and ye find yerself resentin’ me later on?
Will ye push me away, or throw me part in all of this back at me?
I’ve spent most of me life feelin’ unwanted and unwelcome, Killian. I cannae continue to exist that way.”
Killian gazed down at her so intently that her heart began to race, her body responding to him despite herself. “Did ye nae hear me, lass? I love ye. I could never resent ye or push ye away. And me clan willnae either.”
He loves me.
“Ye cannae promise that,” she protested.
“Aye, I can.” He clenched his jaw. “Damn it all—how can I convince ye, eh? Is me confession nae enough?”
She was about to respond that she wasn’t sure if love was enough when he kissed the protest from her lips. His mouth pressed against hers in a passionate graze of urgent longing, his arm sliding possessively, protectively around her waist to pull her closer.
Ailis responded before she could stop herself, her mouth catching his with the same fervent hunger, the same desperate longing.
This was why she had wanted him to leave, because she had known that if they got too close, she simply wouldn’t care about the rest of it anymore. And if she ever kissed him again, she would never be able to send him away. No one was that strong.
All of that was confirmed as she fisted her hands in his shirt and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him more deeply, her body melting into his fierce embrace.
“Ye mean everythin’ to me,” he murmured against her mouth, before kissing her harder, his tongue dancing with hers. “I’ll never give ye up.”
Please daenae. Oh, please daenae.
She met the urgency of his kiss with equal fervor, wondering how she had lasted so long in her stubborn resolve. It crumbled with each press of his lips, each brush of his thumb, and each squeeze of his arm around her waist.
If he had laid her down right there on the mossy ground, she would have welcomed it. Indeed, she was so lost in their kiss and the press of his body against hers and the ragged saw of their breaths that, when he suddenly pulled back, it felt like her heart had been wrenched from her chest.
“Come with me,” he said roughly, his hand sliding into hers.
She hesitated, worried that the spell of his kiss would break. “Where to?”
“Do ye trust me?” He furrowed his brow, clearly wary of her answer.
For a moment, the world stilled, everything slowing down as if she were underwater again. Only, this time, there was no fear in it, just the most perfect wave of peace coursing through her veins.
With a smile on her freshly kissed lips, she held his wintry gaze and nodded, knowing that it was entirely true.
“I do,” she replied.
Indeed, that was the moment she realized that there was no one in the world whom she trusted more. So, when he said that his clan would accept her and that love was enough, who was she to argue?