Chapter 23
“What if I’ve rethought me condition?” Violet asked.
Connor did not move. He was still close enough to feel the warmth of her skin through the narrow space between them.
Her hair was spread across the rough pillow, damp at the ends from the bath. Color remained high in her cheeks, and her lips looked softer than his self-control preferred. One hand rested against his chest, light enough that he could have pulled back if he chose.
He did not.
His body had answered before sense could take hold. Heat surged through him, hard and immediate. Every part of him knew exactly what she was offering. A wife in his bed, a marriage with no more rules between them, and her looking up at him with trust in her eyes and fear hidden badly beneath it.
That fear stopped him.
“Which condition?” he asked.
Her face flushed further. “Ye ken very well which one.”
“Aye,” he said. “I do.”
Her lashes lowered, and embarrassment tightened her fingers in his shirt. Connor hated himself a little for putting it there.
He stayed where he was, since moving away too quickly would make a lie of what he wanted, and he would not give her that.
“I willnae take ye in a room above a tavern, Violet,” he said.
“Oh?”
The small sound cut through him.
“And I willnae take ye while ye are hiding the reason why ye changed yer mind.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “I am hiding nothing.”
“Wife?”
“I ken I said I would rethink me condition but ye have to stop calling me that.”
“Then daenae lie while ye are in me bed.”
Her mouth closed.
Below them, a chair scraped across the tavern floor, followed by a man’s brief laugh. The sound reminded him where they were: a locked room above a public house, with cold bathwater beside the fireplace and bitter tea near the bed.
For the love of God, his coat still hung over the screen he had used to guard her modesty. He was half-dressed, and she was wrapped in rough linen and a blanket, and he wanted her badly enough that his hand had clenched into the bedding.
He unclenched his fingers.
Violet looked away. “Perhaps I have only decided some rules are unnecessary.”
“Some?”
“In certain moments.”
“Rules like what?” he asked, his eyebrow raised, curiosity getting the better of him.
She pressed her lips together, then looked back at him with that dangerous tilt of her chin. “During intimate moments, I may like it when ye take control.”
Connor’s breath left him slowly. She knew very well what she was doing. Maybe not all of it, maybe not the full force of it, but she knew enough. Her voice had softened over the admission, and the sound of it went through him with more force than any open challenge.
“Daenae offer me that because ye are afraid,” he grunted.
“I am offering it because I want to.”
“Ye daenae ken what I want.”
“Then tell me.”
“Nay.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Why?”
“Because I cannae afford to lose control with ye.”
She stared at him. He saw the warning reach her. He also saw the way her breath hitched after, the way her fingers tightened in his shirt before she released him.
“What would happen if ye did?” she asked.
Connor looked at her mouth, then at the blanket pulled over her. He drew it higher across her chest with one careful tug. If he did not keep doing small, sensible things, he would forget every reason to stop.
“Ye cannae imagine the things I would do to ye,” he rasped.
Violet swallowed. “What if I want to ken?”
His hand gripped the edge of the blanket, hard enough to wrinkle it. “Nae like this.”
“Like what?”
“Pale from the market. Full of bitter tea. Hiding something from me? Right now isnae the best time to ask for something like this.”
Her hand moved to her midsection, quick and unthinking, and caught in the blanket before she could lower it. Connor saw it. He kept his gaze on her face, though the small motion gave more meaning and shape to the fear she had denied him.
“If I take ye, I may get ye pregnant,” he warned.
Her blush deepened, fierce and helpless.
“That is what ye forbade,” he reminded her. “So tell me why ye are suddenly willing to risk it.”
She looked at him for several breaths, but no answer came.
Connor pushed himself upright before desire could make a coward of him. The bed ropes creaked as he shifted to sit beside her, putting space where his body wanted none. He kept one hand on the blanket near her hip—a poor compromise, perhaps, but he needed to know she was steady.
Violet watched him with bruised pride in her eyes. “So that is yer answer?”
“Me answer is that ye will tell me the truth before I make a child with ye.”
“I didnae say anything about making a child.”
“Nay. Ye tried to speak around it.”
Her chin lifted again. “Ye make sense sound deeply unappealing, do ye ken that?”
“Aye. That is because it often is.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, though her eyes still blazed with anger. “Ye could simply admit ye enjoy denying me.”
Connor looked at her squarely and tried in his own way to let her see the cost. His hand in the bedding and his breathing and the way he had sat beside her, because lying next to her had become too dangerous.
“I want ye, let me make that clear,” he said, watching her eyes darken. “Daenae mistake me restraint for lack of want.”
“Then what should I call it?”
“Sense.”
She tutted, turning her head slightly. “Well, that is a dull word.”
“Ye will be surprised, wife.”
Violet looked toward the table while Connor reached for the piece of bread he had torn off earlier. He held it out to her.
“Eat,” he said.
Her eyes returned to him, narrowed. “Is that what this is? Ye refuse me and then feed me?”
“Aye.”
“In what world does that make sense?”
“The one where ye’re still avoiding the question I asked ye. Wife.”
She did not take the bread. Her fingers curled into the blanket instead, and Connor could tell that for once she had no sharp answer ready.
Violet exhaled, watching the bread in his hand until he placed it back beside the tea.
The tea cooled on the table, dark in the cup. The taste still lingered on her tongue. She drew the blanket higher beneath her arms and forced her voice into something steadier than her pulse.
“If I never give ye more heirs,” she asked, “what happens?”
Connor watched her from the edge of the bed. “That is nae an answer.”
“It is a question.”
He scoffed. “Are ye still trying to refuse me?”
“Will ye answer it or nae?”
His gaze dropped to her hand. She had not noticed it had moved toward her midsection until his eyes found it. She lowered her hand at once and tucked it beneath the blanket.
“John is me heir now,” he said.
“And if Lachlan has children later?”
“They wouldnae take John’s place.”
“But they would be Lachlan’s blood too.”
“Aye. They wouldnae be mine to raise unless Lachlan gave them to me, as John was given to me.”
The way he said it made her fingers close around the blanket. Given. As if John had been a parcel set at a gate rather than a child born of Jane’s pain and Lachlan’s fear.
But then, he had been a parcel set at a gate.
“Why do ye speak of Lachlan as if he is a problem to be managed?” Violet asked.
“He is.”
“But he is yer brother.”
“Two things can be true.”
Violet sat straighter, though the movement tugged at the weakness in her limbs. “He held John today.”
“And did he stay long enough to prove anything beyond wanting a moment?”
“That is unkind.”
“It is true. I ken me brother and ye daenae.”
“Ye think ye are being truthful, but frankly, I think ye are being cruel.”
Connor’s face hardened, chasing away whatever softness had been there. It should have comforted her. This version of him was easier to argue with.
“Better cruel than sorry,” he shot back.
Violet went still, the blanket pulled tight against her chest. Connor did not raise his voice. He did not even need to. The answer carried enough force without volume.
“That is a terrible thing to believe,” she said.
“It is a living man’s belief.”
“A rather lonely one, I must say.”
His jaw ticked, and he looked toward the fire, then back at her. “Me father believed a man could soften an enemy with trust. He opened our doors to one. Fed him. Spoke peace to him.”
His hand rested on his knee, his fingers still. Too still.
“That night, me mother died. Me sister died. Me father died.” His voice was low, each word cut clean. “I got Lachlan out because I was fast enough for one brother and too late for the rest.”
Violet’s breath caught.
There had been stories, hints, hard edges around Connor’s name that others approached with caution. None of them had placed him in a castle turned bloody by one opened door, young enough to still have a brother to drag to safety, and old enough to count the bodies he could not reach.
“Connor,” she said softly.
“Daenae.”
“I daenae pity ye. Ye clearly daenae need it.”
“Good.”
She looked at his hand again. His fingers had curled now, slowly, as if he had noticed the stillness and found it unacceptable. He uncurled them one by one.
“I was going to say that a boy surviving that shouldnae have had to become a wall.”
His eyes slid back to hers. “Well, if there is one thing I have learned, it’s that walls keep things alive.”
“They also keep people out.”
“Aye, that too.”
The answer struck too hard, and he knew. That was the worst of it. He knew exactly what he had built and had chosen it anyway.
From below, someone called for ale, and a chair knocked against a table. The tavern went on in its ordinary way beneath them while Violet sat wrapped in a blanket beside a man who spoke of dead family as if naming a weather report.
“Lachlan is still yer brother,” she reasoned.
“I ken. John needs him sober as well.”
“Perhaps he needs mercy.”
“Mercy without sense is how bairns are buried.”
Violet flinched.
Connor saw it. The steel in his eyes flickered, not enough to soften him, but enough to show that he had not meant to hurt her.
“John willnae be risked because Lachlan finds shame easier than change,” he said. “Neither will ye. Neither will this clan.”
“So that’s it? Ye think fear can save everyone.”
“I ken the cost when it doesnae.”
Violet wanted to press further. She wanted to tell him that a man could be broken and still be worth saving. She wanted to remind him that John might one day ask why his father was kept away by the only family he had left.
The words gathered, then scattered when the room tilted faintly at the edges. She gripped the blanket tighter.
Connor’s eyes sharpened. “Enough.”
“I wasnae finished.”
“I ken.”
“Then why stop?”
“Because ye are pale again, and I would rather fight with ye when ye can remain upright through the whole insult.”
Her mouth twitched despite herself. “That is almost considerate.”
“I am improving.”
“Slowly.”
“Aye. I wouldnae want to alarm ye with too much progress.”
Violet leaned back against the pillow before he could tell her to do it. The candle near the table burned low, the flame flickering whenever air slipped beneath the door. Her body had lost the last of its borrowed strength, so even anger required more than she had to give.
Connor reached for the cup of angelica tea. “Finish this.”
She made a face. “I would rather fight.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Ye are ordering me again.”
“Aye.”
“It remains unattractive.”
“Tomorrow, yer lie will be more convincing.”
She took the cup from him and drank because arguing would require sitting up longer. The bitterness coated her mouth.
Connor watched until she handed it back, then set it aside and pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders with the same care that had undone her earlier.
“It doesnae change that I still think ye are being too hard on him,” she murmured.
“I ken.”
“Ye are supposed to defend yerself.”
“I thought ye needed sleep.”
“I can sleep and be correct.”
His mouth twitched, almost a smile. “That I believe.”
Her eyes grew heavy. Connor stayed beside her, one forearm on his knee, his body angled toward the door as if he could guard her from the whole village and argue at the same time.
She had called him cruel, and as sleep pulled her under, she was no longer sure that was the right name for what he had carried all these years. Perhaps he was as much a victim as she had been.
Suddenly, she wasn’t sure having children with him was the right thing to do.